Journal: Working Paper

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Socioeconomic Institute, University of Zurich

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2008 - 20092
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Publications 1 - 2 of 2
  • Rationality on the rise
    Item type: Working Paper
    Fehr-Duda, Helga; Bruhin, Adrian; Epper, Thomas; et al. (2008)
    Working Paper
    How does risk tolerance vary with stake size? This important question cannot be adequately answered if framing effects, nonlinear probability weighting, and heterogeneity of preference types are neglected. We show that, contrary to gains, no coherent change in relative risk aversion is observed for losses. The increase in relative risk aversion over gains cannot be captured by the curvature of the utility function. It is driven predominantly by a change in probability weighting of a majority group of individuals who exhibit more rational probability weighting at high stakes. These results not only challenge expected utility theory, but also prospect theory.
  • How much do journal titles tell us about the academic interest and relevance of economic research?
    Item type: Working Paper
    Schläpfer, Felix (2009)
    Working Paper
    Unlike in other disciplines, research output in economics is commonly measured based on the journal titles in which an author has published. Here, I examine how much output measures based on journal titles tell us about the academic interest and relevance of economic papers as measured by citation frequency. Using data from the 2008 Handelsblatt ranking of economists in German speaking countries and interdisciplinary citation data from the Web of Science, I find that researcher scores based on journal titles explain only about one fourth of the variation (variance) in article citations. When the top 10 (20) percent of the researchers according to journal title scores are excluded, the percentage of explained variation in citation frequency drops to 5 (3) percent. These findings empirically confirm the hypothesis that the measures of research output in economics promote narrow and complacent work that is of interest to few, even among an academic audience. They suggest that responsible hiring committees and funding institutions should re-examine existing standards in evaluation and abandon the heavy reliance on journal titles as a measure of individual research output.
Publications 1 - 2 of 2