The Globalization of the Economics Profession

Photo: Kenneth Lu

The globalization of the economics profession is remarkable. I was chatting with a new Ph.D. from the Technical University of Dortmund, Germany. He did his undergraduate work in Shanghai, China; he went to Denver, USA, to attend the American Economic Association job market; and he just had a job visit to Monash University in Australia. Thus, his educational background and job activities span 4 continents!
This kind of globalization is growing rapidly in my profession (and many others); and the competition that it implies has effects on behavior in domestic professional markets. Until the 1980s, it was typical for senior scholars in Germany to insist that their young associates list the “Herr Professor Doktor” as a coauthor. One still sees that, but only among the very oldest senior professors. Partly that’s because outsiders, seeing a senior German professor’s name on his students’ papers, assume that the senior person did nothing. International openness alters even intellectual markets. (HT: YG)