Scholars devote a large share of their time to presenting new research projects at research seminars and conferences, and to discussing them face-to-face with other colleagues. New research finds that this investment leads to very high returns in terms of research quality.
That is the central finding of research by Asier Minondo, to be presented at the annual congress of the European Economic Association in August 2020. Minondo finds that a 10% increase in the number of research seminars at which a paper is presented and in the number of scholars that provided feedback increases the quality of the journal in which a paper is published by 6%. Contrarily, presentations at conferences do not improve the quality of a paper.
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The final quality of a research project is determined by the quality of the author, the initial quality of the research idea, and the feedback received from peers in face-to-face conversations and at research seminars and conferences.
This study uses the acknowledgement section of an article to compute the number of scholars that provided feedback, and the number of research seminars and conferences at which a project was presented.
To control for the quality of the author, the study uses the quality of the institution with which the scholar is affiliated.
To determine the initial quality of a research idea, the study uses a feature of the job placement process of PhD candidates in economics. During their last academic year, future PhD graduates in economics select a project, among their contemporaneous research ideas, as their job market paper. This is the tool PhD candidates use to show their research skills to potential employers.
Since PhD candidates want to maximise job offers, they select as job market paper their highest quality project. Thus, the fact that a paper was selected as job market paper provides a signal for the initial quality of a research project.
The study identifies the job market paper and the rest of projects that could have been selected as job market paper of 2,113 PhD candidates in economics from to the top 40 US economics departments from 2000 to 2018. It follows all projects until they are eventually published.
The study finds that if the number of scholars providing feedback on new research increased by 10%, the final quality of the research would improve by 3%. Likewise, if the number of research seminars at which a project was presented increased by 10%, the final quality of the paper would also rise by 3%.
Although the number of conferences at which a paper is presented is positively correlated with the final quality of a paper, this association disappears once the number of scholars providing feedback and the number of research seminars are considered.
The study also finds that feedback from high-quality scholars and presentations at high-quality economic departments contribute more to improving a research project than feedback from low-quality scholars and presentations at low-quality economic departments.
These results confirm that peers' individual and collective comments have a large positive effect on the quality of research projects, especially when they come from top scholars or are received when presenting a paper at a top institution.
From a policy perspective, these results justify the use of public funding to organise research seminars, interact with other scholars, and finance stays at top economics institutions.
ENDS
Asier Minondo
Deusto Business School, University of Deusto, Spain.
Email: aminondo@deusto.es