Einav L, Yariv L. "What's in a surname? The effects of surname initials on academic success " Journal of Economic Perspectives 20(1): 175-187 WIN 2006.

[Eugene Garfield]

Leeat Yariv : lyariv at hss.caltech.edu

FULL TEXT AVAILABLE AT :
http://www.hss.caltech.edu/~lyariv/Papers/Einav_Yariv.pdf

Title: What's in a surname? The effects of surname initials on academic
success

Author(s): Einav L, Yariv L

Source: JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 20 (1): 175-187 WIN 2006

Document Type: Article
Language: English
Cited References: 15      Times Cited: 0
KeyWords Plus: ECONOMICS

Addresses: Einav L (reprint author), Stanford Univ, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
Stanford Univ, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
CALTECH, Pasadena, CA 91125 USA

E-mail Addresses: leinav at stanford.edu, lyariv at hss.calatech.edu

Publisher: AMER ECONOMIC ASSOC, 2014 BROADWAY, STE 305, NASHVILLE, TN 37203
USA
Subject Category: ECONOMICS
IDS Number: 030MP

ISSN: 0895-3309


ABSTRACT:

We present evidence that a variety of proxies for success in the U.S.
economics labor market (tenure at highly ranked schools, fellowship in the
Econometric Society, and to a lesser extent, Nobel Prize and Clark Medal
winnings) are correlated with surname initials, favoring economists with
surname initials earlier in the alphabet. These patterns persist even when
controlling for country of origin, ethnicity, and religion. We suspect that
these effects are related to the existing norm in economics prescribing
alphabetical ordering of authors’ credits. Indeed, there is no significant
correlation between surname initials and tenure at departments of
psychology, where authors are credited roughly according to their
intellectual contribution. The economics market participants seem to react
to this phenomenon. Analyzing publications in the top economics journals
since 1980, we note two consistent patterns: authors with higher surname
initials are significantly less likely to participate in projects with more
than three authors and significantly more likely to write papers in which
the order of credits is non-alphabetical.
Journal of Economic Literature classification numbers: A11, A13, J23, J70,
Z13.

Keywords: Norms, Economics Job Market, Alphabetical Discrimination.