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Economics departmental rankings in Korea: A decade later
Journal of Asian Economics 16 (2005) 223–237
Economics departmental rankings in Korea: A decade later§ Jang C. Jin * Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics, Faculty of Business Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong Received 31 May 2004; received in revised form 15 December 2004; accepted 14 January 2005
1. Introduction About a decade ago when a ranking of economics departments in Korea was first published (Jin, 1996), it surprised many Korean economists. The rankings were seen as a threat to the economics profession there. As a result, the rankings were seldom mentioned in public and academics refused to discuss them, even in private. However, as students were given a right to evaluate professors and had increasing opportunities to go abroad, university administrators were compelled to change their attitude toward professors’ performance, particularly their publication in internationally recognized journals. Some schools even started providing cash incentives for international journal publications although this type of academic research, in addition to teaching and service, is assumed to be a duty in most developed countries. Particularly, since the mid-1990s, economics professors in Korea have been motivated to publish in international journals more than ever; their publication in international journals has begun to be appreciated. In addition, many Korean scholars returned from overseas universities in recent years, and labor mobility even within the domestic market has become a fashion. However, there have been no studies evaluating the recent changes in
§ An earlier version was presented at the conference on ‘changes and continuity in contemporary Korea’, organized by the Center for Asian Pacific Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, April 2004. * Tel.: +852 2609 7902; fax: +852 2603 5104. E-mail address: [email protected].
1049-0078/$ – see front matter # 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.asieco.2005.01.002
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research productivity of the economics profession in Korea, and little has been done for analysis of the causes and effects of increased productivity.1 This article documents and qualifies the recent changes in research productivity in Korea. Section 2 updates departmental rankings reflecting the past 10 years. Section 3 investigates the sources of rising productivity in research. The impact of the improved productivity on school reputation is also estimated. Section 4 compares domestic performance with other East Asian and U.S universities. Finally, implications and conclusions are presented in Section 5.
2. Economics departmental rankings Since ranking research performance of economics departments is a sensitive issue, several strict rules consistent with previous research (Jin, 1996) are applied. First, departmental rankings are based upon page counts of articles published in international refereed journals over the period 1970–2003. The EconLit CD-ROM (December 2003) is used to track page counts as it includes all international journals (currently about 400 major journals) that have been appeared in the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL). Total pages are counted only for the articles clearly subjected to a refereeing process. Excluded are conference proceedings, monographs, books, book reviews, collective volume articles, Ph.D. dissertations, and working papers. NBER working papers, IMF staff papers, and Carnegie-Rochester conference series on public policy are the only non-refereed publications included for the rankings as they are frequently cited in the economics literature. It would be desirable to include domestic Korean language journals, but this was not done since inclusion of the many school-published journals in Korean is a formidable task and beyond the scope of this paper.2 Second, the ranking methodology counts the ‘stock’ of past and current publications that have been published by current faculty members in each department (e.g., Scott & Mitias, 1996). Faculty names were taken from the websites of economics departments of the universities in the study (as of December 2003).3 Third, only economics departments are rated. Although there are research-active economists working in other departments such as international trade, agricultural economics, finance, and so forth, they are not counted. Several research institutes are not included either, because their job obligations differ from academia. Fourth, economics departments are excluded from the ranking if 1 There are numerous ranking studies in the economics literature. Some of the most recent U.S. rankings are found in Dusansky and Vernon (1998), Feinberg (1998), and Griliches and Einav (1998). Kalaitzidakis, Mamuneas, and Stengos, (1999) and Lubrano, Kirman, Bauwens, and Protopopescu (2003) provide comprehensive rankings for European universities. For East Asian universities, Jin and Yao (1999) rank top-10 schools. While several different methods have been used to rank economics departments all over the world, no such assessment has been done accounting for recent changes in Korean universities. 2 It would also be desirable to employ ‘standardized page counts’ which convert total pages to AER-equivalent length pages (see Graves, Marchand, & Thompson, 1982, among others, for top-24 journals). This was not done since a reliable conversion ratio is not available for all other journals. 3 The most recent data for universities in the study were used. Usually data were up to date though sometimes schools had not updated their faculty information for two to three years.
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only one faculty member is active in research. Fifth, if a journal article is coauthored by ‘n’ people, 1/n of the pages are credited to each coauthor. Finally, branch campuses were not independently counted.4 Fig. 1 shows page counts of international refereed journals for top-40 universities in Korea over the sample period 1970–2003. There are more than 200 tertiary institutions in Korea, but only 40 universities were included. The remaining 160 plus schools do not appear in the ranking, either because their faculty had zero publications during the sample period 1970–2003 or because they did not have a department of economics. Korea University and Seoul National University are ranked as the top-2 schools with 1837.8 and 1783.4 published pages, respectively. The improvement of Hanyang University to number three from its previous rank number seven is impressive although its performance is about one half of the top-2 schools. After that, Sogang follows in fourth, while some may be disappointed by Yonsei’s fifth place finish. Relatively new and small schools also entered the top tier. For example, Sungkyunkwan, Kookmin, Chonnam, Dongguk, and Sookmyung are now ranked in top-10 schools. Other than that, weak research performance in lower ranks appears to be similar to each other, and the ranks will be changed dramatically if one star performance is included.5 Table 1 presents the research performance further for two sub-periods and compares the changes in the ranks. For the first sub-period 1970–1993, the order of top-4 schools (Seoul, Korea, Yonsei, and Sogang) are identical to the finding in Jin (1996) although actual number of pages are slightly different. For the lower ranked schools, more variations are found. The differences found here from the past ranking are mainly due to changes in current faculty members of the departments. More specifically, during the past 10 years, a number of fine scholars were increasingly appreciated by the Korean job market and moved to better universities. For example, when a fine research scholar entered a job market, economics departments were buying his or her future flow of research as well as the stock of past and current research the scholar would bring to a department. In addition, the ranks in recent 10 years 1994–2003 are found to be similar to the overall ranking of the entire sample period 1970–2003 in the first column except a few changes. Thus, it may not be too much to say that recent performance dominates and it nearly determines the overall ranking. The last column in Table 1 then reports the changes in the rank over time, which evaluates how much each school was improved especially for the past 10 years. Korea University is found to outperform all others. Hanyang University has also improved significantly. The improvements in Chonnam, Hallym, 4
One might object to this type of ranking because all journals were equally weighted. Quality-adjusted rankings employed impact factors as journal weights for U.S. universities (Laband & Piette, 1994); alternatively, different groups of journals were also used as quality weights for East Asian universities (Jin & Yao, 1999). But for Korean universities, all international journals are included and hence their impact factors may turn out to be nearly zero for most ‘C’ journals. Grouping quality journals is also subjective. 5 As noted in Jin (1996), Chung-ang University still publishes a lot in Journal of Economic Development (JED), whose editorship is housing in that school. If the papers published in the JED are counted, the Chung-ang University would rank seventh (455.6 pages in total). However, checking individual output of the department reveals that more than 86% of their performance has been published in its own journal, JED. Seoul National University (2220.1 pages in total) also publishes about 20% of their performance in its own journal, Seoul Journal of Economics (SJE). For this reason, papers published in their in-house journals are not counted for these two schools.
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Fig. 1. Page counts of international refereed journals: top-40 universities in Korea 1970–2003.
Pusan, and Yeongnam are also impressive. However, many schools, including Seoul National and Yonsei Universities, did not follow a current trend in research enhancement in Korea.6 Table 2 presents the per capita productivity in which a wide range in the size of a department is controlled for the number of faculty members in that department. The first column shows average productivity that one faculty member has published in international refereed journals over the entire sample period 1970–2003. Korea University is again found to be at the top, and Seoul National follows. In other words, a faculty member in Korea University is, on average, more productive than in Seoul National. To check on the robustness of the results, the sample was split into two sub-periods 1970–1993 and 1994–2003, based upon the degree of openness in Korean universities. The university openness is defined here as how many publications the university ‘‘buys’’ from overseas. Since the mid-1990s, many universities have ‘‘purchased’’ overseas international publications by hiring well-published academics from foreign countries. The invited overseas scholars might also have a spillover effect on other faculty members. This is analogous to the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the process of economic 6 In particular, some schools tend to hire their alumni rather than allowing open competition in the job market. Yonsei University has a bad reputation in this regard. Their preference for alumni in the job market mitigates the chances to hire fine research scholars, and it also discourages academic works even after they have the position. In addition, economics professions especially in Seoul National University are often invited to government’s economic policy or civil affairs. Unlike in the U.S., few politicians in Korea appreciate academic achievement; most important is a personal connection to political authority and a professor’s reputation as an opinion leader. This sort of social environment also discourages academic research as well as quality teaching. I thank an anonymous referee for suggesting these two critical points.
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Table 1 Economics departmental rankings in Korea Rank
University
Total pages, international journal, 1970–2003
1970–1993
1994–2003
Pages
Rank
Pages
Rank
Changes in rank
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 35 37 38 39 40
Korea Seoul National Hanyang Sogang Yonsei Sungkyunkwan Kookmin Chonnam Dongguk Sookmyung Kyunghee Hallym Pusan Soongsil Yeongnam Kyonggi Ajou Dankook Kunkook Hansung Hankook F. Inha Kyungsang Chonbuk Chungang Sungshin U of Seoul Kyungbook Incheon Chongju Ewha Suwon Sejong Keimyung Hongik Sangmyung Chungbuk Pusan F. Myungji Cheju
1837.8 1783.4 970.2 910.1 797.1 576.8 361.5 347.8 309.8 193.8 190.0 172.8 160.1 146.1 140.5 140.3 134.7 120.0 110.5 100.9 81.5 77.0 72.5 71.5 62.5 53.0 47.0 44.3 40.0 34.2 32.6 32.0 31.5 29.5 27.0 27.0 25.0 24.0 23.0 15.0
447.7 680.7 102.6 255.0 342.8 130.0 73.5 43.0 109.0 0.0 37.5 11.5 9.8 25.0 9.5 35.5 60.5 33.0 0.0 29.0 52.5 0.0 4.0 20.5 14.5 0.0 8.0 0.0 0.0 15.2 0.0 28.0 0.0 0.0 20.0 15.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
2 1 7 4 3 5 8 11 6 – 12 23 24 17 25 13 9 14 – 15 10 – 27 18 22 – 26 – – 20 – 16 – – 19 21 – – – –
1500.6 1102.8 867.5 655.1 454.3 446.8 288.0 304.8 200.8 193.8 152.5 161.3 150.3 121.1 131.0 104.8 74.2 87.0 110.5 71.9 29.0 77.0 68.5 51.0 48.0 53.0 39.0 44.3 40.0 19.0 32.6 4.0 31.5 29.5 7.0 12.0 25.0 24.0 23.0 15.0
1 2 3 4 5 6 8 7 9 10 12 11 13 15 14 17 20 18 16 21 32 19 22 24 25 23 28 26 27 36 29 40 30 31 39 38 33 34 35 37
+1 1 +4 0 2 1 0 +4 3 – 0 +12 +11 +2 +11 4 11 4 – 6 22 – +5 6 3 – 2 – – 16 – 24 – – 20 17 – – – –
Note: The values are total pages published in international refereed journals.
development. A domestic economy will not only be improved directly by foreign capital inflows, but domestic technology will also be improved indirectly through the spillover effect. Thus, the sample period beginning from 1994 may be thought of as representing an ‘FDI-type’ research, whereas the sample period prior to 1994 may be thought of as representing an ‘import-substitution’ research.
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Table 2 Per capita productivity Rank
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 28 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
University
Korea Seoul National Hanyang Dongguk Sogang Yonsei Kookmin Sungkyunkwan Chonnam Hallym Dankook Ajou Sookmyung Kyonggi Hansung Kyunghee Yeongnam Kunkook Soongsil Sungshin Pusan Kyungsang Inha Chongju Chungang Pusan F. Hankook F. Hongik Sangmyung Suwon Chonbuk Incheon Sejong Ewha Keimyung U of Seoul Chungbuk Myungji Kyungbook Cheju
Per capita pages, 1970–2003a
Per capita annual averages 1970–1993
1994–2003
Productivity changes (%)
91.89 55.73 53.90 34.42 33.71 27.48 24.10 21.36 20.45 17.28 17.14 16.83 13.84 12.75 12.62 11.17 10.03 9.20 9.13 8.83 8.42 8.06 7.00 6.84 6.25 6.00 5.82 5.40 5.40 5.33 5.10 5.00 3.93 3.63 3.27 3.13 3.12 2.87 2.60 2.14
0.77 0.81 0.21 0.50 0.62 0.57 0.30 0.41 0.17 0.11 0.09 0.42 0.00 0.21 0.15 0.17 0.03 0.00 0.10 0.00 0.03 0.02 0.00 0.10 0.03 0.00 0.19 0.13 0.15 0.23 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
7.50 3.44 4.81 2.23 2.42 1.56 1.92 1.65 1.79 1.61 1.24 0.92 1.38 0.95 0.89 0.89 0.93 0.92 0.75 0.88 0.79 0.76 0.70 0.38 0.48 0.60 0.20 0.14 0.24 0.07 0.36 0.50 0.39 0.36 0.33 0.26 0.31 0.29 0.26 0.21
974 424 2290 446 390 273 640 402 1052 1463 1377 219 – 452 593 523 3100 – 750 – 2633 3800 – 380 1600 – 105 107 160 30 600 – – – – 650 – – – –
b
c
a Total pages were divided by the number of faculty members that were obtained from the website in each university as of December 2003. b Total pages were divided by the number of faculty members, which was again divided by the number of years. Faculty names were obtained from the Korean Economic Association’s (KEA) Directory of KEA Members (1994). c Total pages were divided by the number of faculty members, which was again divided by the number of years. Faculty names were obtained from websites (December 2003).
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The second and third columns in Table 2 present annual averages of the per capita productivity for two sub-periods. For the first sub-period, Seoul National University is ranked first and Korea University second; however, the order is reversed for the most recent 10-year period. For the rest of universities in the sample, the latter sub-period nearly determines the overall ranking as in Table 1. In addition, an annual average productivity across universities has been increased sharply for the years characterizing an FDI-type research. In particular, the average productivity appears to be trivial prior to 1994, but it jumps 200–1000 percents and even 3000 percents for the period 1994–2003 (see the last column in Table 2). The low productivity during the first sub-period might be related to the lack of incentives and motivations in the 1970s and 1980s.
3. Regression results Fig. 2 shows total research productivity of all economics departments over the period 1970–2002. The most recent year 2003 was not included here because the complete publication of the year did not appear in the December 2003 issue of EconLit CD-ROM because of publication lag. It was found that the economics profession was nearly inactive in academic research until the mid-1980s. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, total publication in Korea slightly increased but hovered around 250 pages per year. Since the mid-1990s, the publication has been increased substantially and reached a peak in 1997 and another peak is also found in 2001. The sharp rise in the late 1990s and early 2000s is very impressive. Greater disagreement, however, arises over the probable
Fig. 2. Total research productivity in Korea 1970–2002.
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Table 3 Correlation coefficients Research productivity (total pages) Research productivity
Overseas publication (pages)
1 1
.79 .79
Tradition/history (number of years)
Entrance exam (score)
School fame (inverse of the rank surveyed)
.29 .17
.69 .61
– .67
Overseas publication
.79 .79
1 1
.10 .004
.65 .66
– .57
Tradition/history
.29 .17
.10 .004
1 1
.45 .19
– .27
Entrance exam
.69 .61
.65 .66
.45 .19
.57
– .27
School fame
– .67
–
1 1
– .66
– .66
– 1
Note: All variables except school fame are taken natural logs. The school fame is measured as an inverse of the rank reported in Joong-ang Daily Newspaper (December 17, 2003). The upper values represent the correlation coefficients between variables when all 40 schools are used, while the lower values represent correlation if 24 schools are used.
causes of the recent increase in productivity. Some economists argue that a purchase of overseas publication is the primary cause for the increased productivity in recent years, whereas most others claim it as domestic; domestic faculty members are publishing more than before. One may also wonder if the increased research performance influences school reputation. Table 3 shows correlation coefficients (r) for several relevant variables. Research productivity that is measured in total page counts appears to be highly correlated with the stock of overseas publications purchased (r = 0.79), which were originally affiliated to a foreign institution at the time of publication but are counted here for his or her current affiliation in Korea. The research productivity of current faculty members is also highly correlated with the students’ college entrance exam (or college aptitude test) scores (r = 0.69), which are reported as a minimum to get in the economics department of each university. The exam scores are thus used as a proxy for student quality. Recently, school fame was ranked for thirty top universities in Korea based upon a survey data conducted by Joong-ang Daily Newspaper (December 17, 2003). Since the way of ranking the fame (e.g. 1 = best, 30 = worst) is to have an awkward negative relationship with other performance-based variables in the model, an inverse of the rank is used here to assign the highest score to the best school and the lowest to the worst. Among top-30 universities surveyed, six schools were not found in our research-based ranking. Only 24 schools are used for analysis. The lower values in Table 4 represent the correlation coefficients between variables when 24 schools are used, while the upper values represent correlation when all 40 schools are used. The results provide evidence that the school fame has a strong positive correlation not only with research performance of current faculty members, but with college entrance exam scores. In other words, the school fame is highly related to faculty performance as well as student quality. However, it is surprising to find
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Table 4 Regression results for research productivity (dependent variable: total pages published) Eq.
Constant
Stock of overseas publication purchased
(1) (2) (3) (4)
1.45 1.44 1.41 1.38
0.49* 0.49* 0.44* 0.44*
(.06) (.06) (.06) (.06)
Public school: 1 = public, 0 = private
Teaching load: 1 if <9 h, 0 otherwise
0.02 (.14) 0.10 (.14)
0.23y (.13) 0.26y (.14)
Obs
Adjusted R2
F
40 40 40 40
0.62 0.61 0.63 0.63
64.4 31.4 35.4 23.4
[.00] [.00] [.00] [.00]
Note: All variables except dummies are in logarithm. The numbers in parenthesis represent standard errors of parameter estimates, and the values in bracket are p-values for F statistics. * Statistical significance at the 5% level y Statistical significance at the 10% level.
that a tradition in higher education, which is measured as the number of years of school history, is no longer strongly related to school fame. The school history is also weakly related to student quality as well as faculty’s research performance. Table 4 further investigates the sources of increased research productivity in recent years. For regression analysis, total pages published are used as a dependent variable. All variables except dummies are taken as logarithms as a heteroscedasticity problem may typically arise in this type of cross-school data, i.e. residuals were observed to be relatively large in higher-rank universities and became smaller in lower ranks. The log-linear model mitigates the measurement scale of the raw data, and thus changes in residuals appear to be smaller. In this case, the heteroscedasticity problem may not be serious. Table 4 provides evidence that changes in overseas publication has a positive impact on domestic productivity, and the impact appears to be significant at the 5% significance level. The size of the impact also appears to be similar in all different specifications of the model. The results are in general consistent with a recent trend that many fine scholars overseas returned to Korea although their performance tended to be less active after being returned. It is also found that the demand for overseas publication depends on the degree of openness of the universities. More open universities in higher ranks are generally found to have a high proportion of overseas publication (30–53% of total pages), while the proportions are relatively low (0–20%) for lower ranks. However, the effect of a public school dummy variable that assigns 1’s if public and 0’s if private appears to be positive but insignificant at the conventional significance levels. The public school includes several national universities, as well as city universities located in Seoul and Incheon. The insignificant effect thus suggests that national universities, on average, perform as much as private universities. This finding is, however, at odds with a general belief in which a decline in research activity until the mid-1990s was largely due to a rigidity of national universities in Korea. In addition, smaller teaching loads were found to help improve research performance. The data for teaching load was recently surveyed by phone calls to all forty economics departments in the sample. Most schools were found to teach 2–4 classes per semester (equivalently, 6–12 h per week). Although real teaching load may vary depending on
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Table 5 Regression results for school fame (dependent variable: ‘inverse’ of school fame’) Eq.
Constant
Entrance exam (scores)
(1) (2) (3) (4)
14.44 14.18 8.96 8.86
5.78* 5.52* 3.45* 3.28*
(1.39) (1.39) (.07) (1.61)
Tradition/history (number of years)
Research productivity (total pages)
0.22 (.24) 0.19 (.22)
0.17* (.07) 0.17* (.07)
Obs
Adjusted R2
F
24 24 24 24
0.41 0.41 0.51 0.51
17.2 9.0 13.3 9.0
[.00] [.00] [.00] [.00]
Note: Dependent variable is measured as an inverse of school fame (e.g., 1 = best, 0.5 = 2nd best, and so forth). All independent variables are in logarithm. The numbers in parenthesis represent standard errors of parameter estimates, and the values in bracket are p-values for F statistics. * Statistical significance at the 5% level.
undergraduate or graduate courses as well as the number of preparations, 3 classes per semester (9 h per week) appeared to be an average among these top-40 schools in Korea. To find the productivity effects of teaching load, a dummy variable of one was assigned if the current teaching load was less than 9 h per week, and zero otherwise. The results are in general consistent with the general belief that people may produce more if their teaching load is reduced; the impacts are statistically significant at the 10% significance level.7 Table 5 shows another estimation results in which school fame was regressed on college entrance exam, school tradition, and research performance. The variable for overseas publications was not included in this model due to a potential statistical problem of collinearity with total research performance (r = 0.79 in Table 3). The dependent variable in this case was an inverse of the rank of school fame surveyed, and only 24 schools were estimated due to availability of the data for school fame. Although the degrees of freedom problem may arise, the effect of college entrance exam that is used as a proxy for student quality appears to be positive and statistically significant at the 5% significance level. Surprisingly, however, the number of years of school history has no significant effect on school fame; the effects are found to be positive but insignificant even at the 10% significance level. The fame, however, significantly depends upon research performance of current faculty members. The effect of research productivity on school fame appears to be positive and statistically significant. Therefore, research matters. Notice, however, that when research productivity is added in Eqs. (3) and (4), the size of the effects of college entrance exam drops, but statistical significance remains almost intact. The size of the effects of research productivity also remains intact even in different model specifications (3) and (4). Thus, multicollinearity problems may not be serious in this model specification. 7 It would also be interesting to run a regression to examine whether cash incentives, as noted earlier, really raised publication in Korea. This could be done using a dummy variable for the years in which cash incentives were actually implemented in each university. However, the panel data for cash incentives are unavailable in public and difficult to obtain, although the same type of data for annual publication are readily available for each university in each year.
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4. International comparison Although the data show that most economists in top-tier Korean universities are now active in research, how do their schools compare with other East Asian and U.S. universities? Jin and Yao (1999) directly compared East Asian universities using top-36 journals over the period 1990–1996, and they found that Seoul National University at that time ranked number eight in East Asia though its performance was about 12% of the top school in East Asia.8 If the performance were further compared with U.S. universities, the two most productive schools in Korea would rank perhaps around 100th to 150th at that time.9 The weak performance in research until the mid-1990s was largely due to the rigidity of education system in Korea. For example, a faculty appointed in economics was considered a permanent job—professors rarely got fired for sub-par performance. Their pay also rose independently of research performance, and thus research incentives were minimal. Much larger emphasis was given to teaching as opposed to research, even in top schools in Korea. What made matters worse, academic research was not appreciated in Korea until the mid1990s, while contract research with firms and the government was more attractive due to cash compensation. Recently, however, many universities finally mapped out a strategy to survive. One of them is cash incentives for international journal publication, which is regarded as a unique method to discriminate the pay scale based upon quality research. Another marked change is an introduction of contract-based employment for new faculty members, which also allows labor mobility to be more flexible even within domestic markets. The research environment has been, in general, favorable to fine research scholars since the mid-1990s and many overseas academics are also noticed to return to Korea. Since then, research performance has unprecedentedly increased especially in top-tier schools in Korea. Although a self-financed program that sets up a separate budget for each department in each university and enforces independent management of financial and personnel matters will provide further motivation to enhance research activity, many universities till now hesitate to establish such programs. Table 6 compares the most recent research productivity in Korea with those in other East Asian and U.S. universities although it is difficult to compare the research productivity qualitatively across countries. Dusansky and Vernon (1998) ranked U.S. universities using eight ‘‘blue ribbon’’ A-journals only, and their annual average page counts are reported in the last column of Table 6.10 Jin and Yao (1999) counted both A and B journals (i.e. top-36 journals) for East Asian universities to account for English as a second language in East 8 In the East Asian ranking (Jin & Yao, 1999), Korea University was not included in its top-10. At that time, the Korea University ranked 12th in East Asia. This was either because the East Asian ranking counted quality journals only or because the sample period used for the East Asian ranking was only up to 1996. 9 University of Tsukuba ranked 6th in East Asia, which was equivalent to Wayne State University (U.S. rank 76th) or Temple University (U.S. rank 77th). The research performance of Seoul National at that time was only two-thirds of Tsukuba. 10 The eight blue ribbon journals are American Economic Review, Econometrica, International Economic Review, Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, and Review of Economics and Statistics.
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Table 6 International comparison: annual average pages published by school
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 a b c d e
Top-36b Top-8c East Asian Universities All journals, international journals, 1994–2003 1994–2003 journalsa, 1994–2003
Korea 150.0 Seoul National 110.2 Hanyang 86.7 Sogang 65.5 Yonsei 45.4 Sungkyunkwan 44.6 Chonnam 30.4 Kookmin 28.8 Dongguk 20.0 Sookmyung 19.3
29.87 23.47 7.90 8.44 4.46 5.47 1.22 5.13 3.11 2.02
1.84 4.33 0.18 0.62 0.08 0.31 0.00 0.56 0.00 0.18
Top-36 journals,d U.S. 1990–1996 Universities (Jin & Yao, 1999)
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 115.6 Chinese University of Hong Kong 88.4 Tokyo University 60.8 National Taiwan University 34.6 National University of Singapore 27.3 University of Tsukuba 23.1 University of Hong Kong 18.3 Seoul National University 13.9 City University of Hong Kong 11.3 Osaka University 10.3
The third column in Table 1, divided by 10 years. AER-equivalent pages as in Jin and Yao (1999), divided by 10 years. Quantity- and quality-weighted pages as in Dusansky and Vernon (1998), divided by 10 years. AER-equivalent pages. The first column in Table 1 of Jin and Yao (1999), divided by 7 years. Quantity- and quality-weighted pages. The first column in Table 1 of Dusansky and Vernon (1998), divided by 5 years.
Top-8 journals,e 1990–1994 (Dusansky & Vernon, 1998)
Harvard 103.7 Princeton 96.6 U of Penn 79.4 MIT 79.3 Yale 73.9 Northwestern 70.5 Boston 63.7 NYU 58.9 Berkeley 52.6 Stanford 51.1
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Rank Korean Universities
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Asia and to allow for the degree of difficulty of publishing Asian regional studies in top journals.11 For Korean universities, C journals were also included. In addition, the most recent 10 years were used as a sample period to make up for the delayed openness of Korean universities although an identical sample period is desirable to be used for the purpose of comparison. Only top-10 schools were evaluated. In this way, the research productivity of the Korean universities bears favorable comparison with those in other East Asian universities and even with top schools in the U.S. However, research productivity falls off dramatically in the lower ranked universities in Korea, as well as in East Asia; this contrasts with more gradual drops in productivity one moves down the rank of U.S. universities. However, one might object to this type of international comparison because journal quality and sample periods were adjusted favorably to Korean schools. To compare directly with other East Asian universities, the second column in Table 6 counts top-36 journals only, and these pages are converted to AER-equivalent pages as in Jin and Yao (1999). The most recent 10 years are used as a sample period. Despite some variations in lower ranks, the domestic ranking remained intact for top-2 schools in Korea. Korea University appears to perform slightly better than National University of Singapore (rank 5th in East Asia), and Seoul National University is found to perform similar to University of Tsukuba in Japan (rank 6th in East Asia). The performance of these two schools is also similar to Wayne State University (U.S. rank 76th) and Temple University (U.S. rank 77th) in the U.S. ranking (see Table 3 in Scott & Mitias, 1996).12 The third column in Table 6 further counts top-8 journals only and these pages are adjusted using both quantity- and quality-weights as in Dusansky and Vernon (1998). In other words, total pages are converted to AER-equivalent pages, which are again multiplied by the Laband and Piette (1994) impact factors that are based on citations to different journals. In this case, some schools suffer from the penalty more than double if the professional impact of the journals published is small. Accordingly, the last column shows that entire faculty members even at top U.S. schools seem to publish less than expected. Most Korean schools publish less than one page per year. The annual average performance of the two most productive Korean schools (1.84 and 4.33 pages, respectively) is found to be far below 8.56 pages of Georgetown University, a school of rank number 50 in the U.S. (see the first column in Table 1, Dusansky & Vernon, 1998). Table 7 further computes the research productivity per faculty to take into account department size. Dusansky and Vernon (1998) listed top-50 U.S. universities, but no Korean schools were found to match them in quality research. Scott and Mitias (1996) 11
The top-36 journals include top-8 journals mentioned above plus 28 quality journals: Economic Inquiry, Economic Journal, Economica, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Journal of Business, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Journal of Economic History, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of International Economics, Journal of International Money and Finance, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Journal of Legal Studies, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Regional Science, Journal of Urban Economics, National Tax Journal, Public Choice, Rand Journal, and Southern Economic Journal. 12 I thank David Ahlstrom and an anonymous referee for suggesting this type of direct comparison.
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Table 7 Annual average pages per faculty member: top-36 journals, comparison with U.S. universities Rank
Korean University
1994–2003a
Rank
U.S. universities
1984–1993b
1 2
Korea Seoul National
1.45 0.73
65/66 78/79
Colorado/Georgia State South Carolina/Temple
1.54/1.36 0.94/0.64
a The annual average pages shown in the second column of Table 6, divided by the number of faculty members (as of December 2003). b The department average shown in the first column of Table 4, Scott and Mitias (1996), divided by 10 years.
counted AER-equivalent pages in top-36 journals and reported a department average for top-80 U.S. universities. The department average was then divided by the number of sample years to compute annual average pages per faculty member in U.S. universities. For Korean schools, the annual average pages of the department computed in the second column of Table 6 were divided by the number of faculty members (as of December 2003). For the purpose of comparison with U.S. universities, only top-2 schools are included, which have counterparts in the U.S. ranking. The annual average pages per faculty in Korea University fall between Colorado and Georgia State University (U.S. ranks 65th and 66th, respectively). Seoul National University is observed to be similar to South Carolina and Temple University (U.S. ranks 78th and 79th, respectively). Therefore, several direct comparisons reconfirm our general belief that the research performance of the two most productive schools in Korea is approximately equivalent to second-tier state universities in the U.S. The results are, in general, robust across quality journals as well as disaggregated measures of research productivity. Although their international ranking has been improved recently, research output of the top Korean schools is still lagging behind the ‘four little dragons’ in Asia, and cannot challenge comparison with major state universities in the U.S.
5. Concluding remarks This paper has updated a previous ranking of economics departments in Korea based upon page counts of articles published in international refereed journals. The page counts were employed to capture many variations in the length of articles. A wide range in the size of departments was adjusted by computing per capita productivity. The sources of rising productivity were investigated using a regression model. The fame of a school was also estimated to find whether or not research does matter. A key feature of the finding is summarized as follows. First, research productivity in Korean economics departments has improved substantially since the mid-1990s. Recent research performance over the period 1994–2003 dominates past research, and thus a recent ranking most likely determines an overall ranking of the entire sample period. Second, the rapid growth of productivity in the last 10 years is found to be largely due to an increase in the purchase of overseas publications one brings to a department. Perhaps, the spillover effect might also have been significant to improve research environment. Third, while an increase in research activity leads to a higher reputation of a school, a school
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tradition that is measured as the number of years of school history has little impact on school fame in terms of its reputation. Fourth, this updated information does not support the general belief that economics departments were less productive in national universities than in private universities. Fifth, when journal quality and sample periods were adjusted favorably to Korean schools, the research productivity of top-tier Korean universities bears favorable comparison with those in other East Asian universities and even with top schools in the United States. However, when quality journals were used for direct comparison, the research performance of the two most productive schools in Korea could not be compared to major state universities in the U.S. and was still lagging behind even in Asia. Finally, this ranking procedure based solely on page counts reaches its limits. Like Nobel laureates, the impact of their scientific achievements in their field might be more important than the number of publications. Quality-adjusted rankings should be considered in any future.
Acknowledgements I am grateful for helpful comments from Brian Bridges, Lok-sang Ho, Jung-hoon Lee, and other seminar participants. I also thank David Ahlstrom and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. Able research assistance was received from Doyoung Kim during his visit to Chinese University of Hong Kong. The author alone is responsible for any errors in this paper.
References Dusansky, R., & Vernon, C. J. (1998). Rankings of U.S. Economics Departments. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12, 157–170. Feinberg, R. M. (1998). Correspondence. Ranking economics departments. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12, 231–232. Graves, P. E., Marchand, J. R., & Thompson, R. (1982). Economics departmental rankings: Research incentives, constraints, and efficiency. American Economic Review, 72, 1131–1141. Griliches, Z., & Einav, L. (1998). Ranking economics department. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12, 233– 235. Jin, J. C. (1996). International-journal-article productivity of economics departments in Korea. Korean Economic Review, 12, 55–64. Jin, J. C., & Yao, L. (1999). Research productivity of the economics profession in East Asia. Economic Inquiry, 37, 706–710. Kalaitzidakis, P., Mamuneas, T. P., & Stengos, T. (1999). European economics: An analysis based on publications in the core journals. European Economic Review, 43, 1150–1168. Laband, D. N., & Piette, M. J. (1994). The Relative Impacts of Economics Journals: 1970–1990. Journal of Economic Literature, 32, 640–666. Lubrano, M., Kirman, A., Bauwens, L., & Protopopescu, C. (2003). Ranking economics departments in Europe: A statistical approach. Journal of the European Economic Association, 1, 1367–1401. Scott, L. C., & Mitias, P. M. (1996). Trends in rankings of economics departments in the U.S.: An update. Economic Inquiry, 34, 378–400.
Economics departmental rankings in Korea: A decade later§ Jang C. Jin * Department of Decision Sciences and Managerial Economics, Faculty of Business Administration, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shatin, NT, Hong Kong Received 31 May 2004; received in revised form 15 December 2004; accepted 14 January 2005
1. Introduction About a decade ago when a ranking of economics departments in Korea was first published (Jin, 1996), it surprised many Korean economists. The rankings were seen as a threat to the economics profession there. As a result, the rankings were seldom mentioned in public and academics refused to discuss them, even in private. However, as students were given a right to evaluate professors and had increasing opportunities to go abroad, university administrators were compelled to change their attitude toward professors’ performance, particularly their publication in internationally recognized journals. Some schools even started providing cash incentives for international journal publications although this type of academic research, in addition to teaching and service, is assumed to be a duty in most developed countries. Particularly, since the mid-1990s, economics professors in Korea have been motivated to publish in international journals more than ever; their publication in international journals has begun to be appreciated. In addition, many Korean scholars returned from overseas universities in recent years, and labor mobility even within the domestic market has become a fashion. However, there have been no studies evaluating the recent changes in
§ An earlier version was presented at the conference on ‘changes and continuity in contemporary Korea’, organized by the Center for Asian Pacific Studies, Lingnan University, Hong Kong, April 2004. * Tel.: +852 2609 7902; fax: +852 2603 5104. E-mail address: [email protected].
1049-0078/$ – see front matter # 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.asieco.2005.01.002
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research productivity of the economics profession in Korea, and little has been done for analysis of the causes and effects of increased productivity.1 This article documents and qualifies the recent changes in research productivity in Korea. Section 2 updates departmental rankings reflecting the past 10 years. Section 3 investigates the sources of rising productivity in research. The impact of the improved productivity on school reputation is also estimated. Section 4 compares domestic performance with other East Asian and U.S universities. Finally, implications and conclusions are presented in Section 5.
2. Economics departmental rankings Since ranking research performance of economics departments is a sensitive issue, several strict rules consistent with previous research (Jin, 1996) are applied. First, departmental rankings are based upon page counts of articles published in international refereed journals over the period 1970–2003. The EconLit CD-ROM (December 2003) is used to track page counts as it includes all international journals (currently about 400 major journals) that have been appeared in the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL). Total pages are counted only for the articles clearly subjected to a refereeing process. Excluded are conference proceedings, monographs, books, book reviews, collective volume articles, Ph.D. dissertations, and working papers. NBER working papers, IMF staff papers, and Carnegie-Rochester conference series on public policy are the only non-refereed publications included for the rankings as they are frequently cited in the economics literature. It would be desirable to include domestic Korean language journals, but this was not done since inclusion of the many school-published journals in Korean is a formidable task and beyond the scope of this paper.2 Second, the ranking methodology counts the ‘stock’ of past and current publications that have been published by current faculty members in each department (e.g., Scott & Mitias, 1996). Faculty names were taken from the websites of economics departments of the universities in the study (as of December 2003).3 Third, only economics departments are rated. Although there are research-active economists working in other departments such as international trade, agricultural economics, finance, and so forth, they are not counted. Several research institutes are not included either, because their job obligations differ from academia. Fourth, economics departments are excluded from the ranking if 1 There are numerous ranking studies in the economics literature. Some of the most recent U.S. rankings are found in Dusansky and Vernon (1998), Feinberg (1998), and Griliches and Einav (1998). Kalaitzidakis, Mamuneas, and Stengos, (1999) and Lubrano, Kirman, Bauwens, and Protopopescu (2003) provide comprehensive rankings for European universities. For East Asian universities, Jin and Yao (1999) rank top-10 schools. While several different methods have been used to rank economics departments all over the world, no such assessment has been done accounting for recent changes in Korean universities. 2 It would also be desirable to employ ‘standardized page counts’ which convert total pages to AER-equivalent length pages (see Graves, Marchand, & Thompson, 1982, among others, for top-24 journals). This was not done since a reliable conversion ratio is not available for all other journals. 3 The most recent data for universities in the study were used. Usually data were up to date though sometimes schools had not updated their faculty information for two to three years.
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only one faculty member is active in research. Fifth, if a journal article is coauthored by ‘n’ people, 1/n of the pages are credited to each coauthor. Finally, branch campuses were not independently counted.4 Fig. 1 shows page counts of international refereed journals for top-40 universities in Korea over the sample period 1970–2003. There are more than 200 tertiary institutions in Korea, but only 40 universities were included. The remaining 160 plus schools do not appear in the ranking, either because their faculty had zero publications during the sample period 1970–2003 or because they did not have a department of economics. Korea University and Seoul National University are ranked as the top-2 schools with 1837.8 and 1783.4 published pages, respectively. The improvement of Hanyang University to number three from its previous rank number seven is impressive although its performance is about one half of the top-2 schools. After that, Sogang follows in fourth, while some may be disappointed by Yonsei’s fifth place finish. Relatively new and small schools also entered the top tier. For example, Sungkyunkwan, Kookmin, Chonnam, Dongguk, and Sookmyung are now ranked in top-10 schools. Other than that, weak research performance in lower ranks appears to be similar to each other, and the ranks will be changed dramatically if one star performance is included.5 Table 1 presents the research performance further for two sub-periods and compares the changes in the ranks. For the first sub-period 1970–1993, the order of top-4 schools (Seoul, Korea, Yonsei, and Sogang) are identical to the finding in Jin (1996) although actual number of pages are slightly different. For the lower ranked schools, more variations are found. The differences found here from the past ranking are mainly due to changes in current faculty members of the departments. More specifically, during the past 10 years, a number of fine scholars were increasingly appreciated by the Korean job market and moved to better universities. For example, when a fine research scholar entered a job market, economics departments were buying his or her future flow of research as well as the stock of past and current research the scholar would bring to a department. In addition, the ranks in recent 10 years 1994–2003 are found to be similar to the overall ranking of the entire sample period 1970–2003 in the first column except a few changes. Thus, it may not be too much to say that recent performance dominates and it nearly determines the overall ranking. The last column in Table 1 then reports the changes in the rank over time, which evaluates how much each school was improved especially for the past 10 years. Korea University is found to outperform all others. Hanyang University has also improved significantly. The improvements in Chonnam, Hallym, 4
One might object to this type of ranking because all journals were equally weighted. Quality-adjusted rankings employed impact factors as journal weights for U.S. universities (Laband & Piette, 1994); alternatively, different groups of journals were also used as quality weights for East Asian universities (Jin & Yao, 1999). But for Korean universities, all international journals are included and hence their impact factors may turn out to be nearly zero for most ‘C’ journals. Grouping quality journals is also subjective. 5 As noted in Jin (1996), Chung-ang University still publishes a lot in Journal of Economic Development (JED), whose editorship is housing in that school. If the papers published in the JED are counted, the Chung-ang University would rank seventh (455.6 pages in total). However, checking individual output of the department reveals that more than 86% of their performance has been published in its own journal, JED. Seoul National University (2220.1 pages in total) also publishes about 20% of their performance in its own journal, Seoul Journal of Economics (SJE). For this reason, papers published in their in-house journals are not counted for these two schools.
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Fig. 1. Page counts of international refereed journals: top-40 universities in Korea 1970–2003.
Pusan, and Yeongnam are also impressive. However, many schools, including Seoul National and Yonsei Universities, did not follow a current trend in research enhancement in Korea.6 Table 2 presents the per capita productivity in which a wide range in the size of a department is controlled for the number of faculty members in that department. The first column shows average productivity that one faculty member has published in international refereed journals over the entire sample period 1970–2003. Korea University is again found to be at the top, and Seoul National follows. In other words, a faculty member in Korea University is, on average, more productive than in Seoul National. To check on the robustness of the results, the sample was split into two sub-periods 1970–1993 and 1994–2003, based upon the degree of openness in Korean universities. The university openness is defined here as how many publications the university ‘‘buys’’ from overseas. Since the mid-1990s, many universities have ‘‘purchased’’ overseas international publications by hiring well-published academics from foreign countries. The invited overseas scholars might also have a spillover effect on other faculty members. This is analogous to the role of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the process of economic 6 In particular, some schools tend to hire their alumni rather than allowing open competition in the job market. Yonsei University has a bad reputation in this regard. Their preference for alumni in the job market mitigates the chances to hire fine research scholars, and it also discourages academic works even after they have the position. In addition, economics professions especially in Seoul National University are often invited to government’s economic policy or civil affairs. Unlike in the U.S., few politicians in Korea appreciate academic achievement; most important is a personal connection to political authority and a professor’s reputation as an opinion leader. This sort of social environment also discourages academic research as well as quality teaching. I thank an anonymous referee for suggesting these two critical points.
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Table 1 Economics departmental rankings in Korea Rank
University
Total pages, international journal, 1970–2003
1970–1993
1994–2003
Pages
Rank
Pages
Rank
Changes in rank
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 35 37 38 39 40
Korea Seoul National Hanyang Sogang Yonsei Sungkyunkwan Kookmin Chonnam Dongguk Sookmyung Kyunghee Hallym Pusan Soongsil Yeongnam Kyonggi Ajou Dankook Kunkook Hansung Hankook F. Inha Kyungsang Chonbuk Chungang Sungshin U of Seoul Kyungbook Incheon Chongju Ewha Suwon Sejong Keimyung Hongik Sangmyung Chungbuk Pusan F. Myungji Cheju
1837.8 1783.4 970.2 910.1 797.1 576.8 361.5 347.8 309.8 193.8 190.0 172.8 160.1 146.1 140.5 140.3 134.7 120.0 110.5 100.9 81.5 77.0 72.5 71.5 62.5 53.0 47.0 44.3 40.0 34.2 32.6 32.0 31.5 29.5 27.0 27.0 25.0 24.0 23.0 15.0
447.7 680.7 102.6 255.0 342.8 130.0 73.5 43.0 109.0 0.0 37.5 11.5 9.8 25.0 9.5 35.5 60.5 33.0 0.0 29.0 52.5 0.0 4.0 20.5 14.5 0.0 8.0 0.0 0.0 15.2 0.0 28.0 0.0 0.0 20.0 15.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0
2 1 7 4 3 5 8 11 6 – 12 23 24 17 25 13 9 14 – 15 10 – 27 18 22 – 26 – – 20 – 16 – – 19 21 – – – –
1500.6 1102.8 867.5 655.1 454.3 446.8 288.0 304.8 200.8 193.8 152.5 161.3 150.3 121.1 131.0 104.8 74.2 87.0 110.5 71.9 29.0 77.0 68.5 51.0 48.0 53.0 39.0 44.3 40.0 19.0 32.6 4.0 31.5 29.5 7.0 12.0 25.0 24.0 23.0 15.0
1 2 3 4 5 6 8 7 9 10 12 11 13 15 14 17 20 18 16 21 32 19 22 24 25 23 28 26 27 36 29 40 30 31 39 38 33 34 35 37
+1 1 +4 0 2 1 0 +4 3 – 0 +12 +11 +2 +11 4 11 4 – 6 22 – +5 6 3 – 2 – – 16 – 24 – – 20 17 – – – –
Note: The values are total pages published in international refereed journals.
development. A domestic economy will not only be improved directly by foreign capital inflows, but domestic technology will also be improved indirectly through the spillover effect. Thus, the sample period beginning from 1994 may be thought of as representing an ‘FDI-type’ research, whereas the sample period prior to 1994 may be thought of as representing an ‘import-substitution’ research.
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Table 2 Per capita productivity Rank
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 28 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40
University
Korea Seoul National Hanyang Dongguk Sogang Yonsei Kookmin Sungkyunkwan Chonnam Hallym Dankook Ajou Sookmyung Kyonggi Hansung Kyunghee Yeongnam Kunkook Soongsil Sungshin Pusan Kyungsang Inha Chongju Chungang Pusan F. Hankook F. Hongik Sangmyung Suwon Chonbuk Incheon Sejong Ewha Keimyung U of Seoul Chungbuk Myungji Kyungbook Cheju
Per capita pages, 1970–2003a
Per capita annual averages 1970–1993
1994–2003
Productivity changes (%)
91.89 55.73 53.90 34.42 33.71 27.48 24.10 21.36 20.45 17.28 17.14 16.83 13.84 12.75 12.62 11.17 10.03 9.20 9.13 8.83 8.42 8.06 7.00 6.84 6.25 6.00 5.82 5.40 5.40 5.33 5.10 5.00 3.93 3.63 3.27 3.13 3.12 2.87 2.60 2.14
0.77 0.81 0.21 0.50 0.62 0.57 0.30 0.41 0.17 0.11 0.09 0.42 0.00 0.21 0.15 0.17 0.03 0.00 0.10 0.00 0.03 0.02 0.00 0.10 0.03 0.00 0.19 0.13 0.15 0.23 0.06 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
7.50 3.44 4.81 2.23 2.42 1.56 1.92 1.65 1.79 1.61 1.24 0.92 1.38 0.95 0.89 0.89 0.93 0.92 0.75 0.88 0.79 0.76 0.70 0.38 0.48 0.60 0.20 0.14 0.24 0.07 0.36 0.50 0.39 0.36 0.33 0.26 0.31 0.29 0.26 0.21
974 424 2290 446 390 273 640 402 1052 1463 1377 219 – 452 593 523 3100 – 750 – 2633 3800 – 380 1600 – 105 107 160 30 600 – – – – 650 – – – –
b
c
a Total pages were divided by the number of faculty members that were obtained from the website in each university as of December 2003. b Total pages were divided by the number of faculty members, which was again divided by the number of years. Faculty names were obtained from the Korean Economic Association’s (KEA) Directory of KEA Members (1994). c Total pages were divided by the number of faculty members, which was again divided by the number of years. Faculty names were obtained from websites (December 2003).
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The second and third columns in Table 2 present annual averages of the per capita productivity for two sub-periods. For the first sub-period, Seoul National University is ranked first and Korea University second; however, the order is reversed for the most recent 10-year period. For the rest of universities in the sample, the latter sub-period nearly determines the overall ranking as in Table 1. In addition, an annual average productivity across universities has been increased sharply for the years characterizing an FDI-type research. In particular, the average productivity appears to be trivial prior to 1994, but it jumps 200–1000 percents and even 3000 percents for the period 1994–2003 (see the last column in Table 2). The low productivity during the first sub-period might be related to the lack of incentives and motivations in the 1970s and 1980s.
3. Regression results Fig. 2 shows total research productivity of all economics departments over the period 1970–2002. The most recent year 2003 was not included here because the complete publication of the year did not appear in the December 2003 issue of EconLit CD-ROM because of publication lag. It was found that the economics profession was nearly inactive in academic research until the mid-1980s. In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, total publication in Korea slightly increased but hovered around 250 pages per year. Since the mid-1990s, the publication has been increased substantially and reached a peak in 1997 and another peak is also found in 2001. The sharp rise in the late 1990s and early 2000s is very impressive. Greater disagreement, however, arises over the probable
Fig. 2. Total research productivity in Korea 1970–2002.
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Table 3 Correlation coefficients Research productivity (total pages) Research productivity
Overseas publication (pages)
1 1
.79 .79
Tradition/history (number of years)
Entrance exam (score)
School fame (inverse of the rank surveyed)
.29 .17
.69 .61
– .67
Overseas publication
.79 .79
1 1
.10 .004
.65 .66
– .57
Tradition/history
.29 .17
.10 .004
1 1
.45 .19
– .27
Entrance exam
.69 .61
.65 .66
.45 .19
.57
– .27
School fame
– .67
–
1 1
– .66
– .66
– 1
Note: All variables except school fame are taken natural logs. The school fame is measured as an inverse of the rank reported in Joong-ang Daily Newspaper (December 17, 2003). The upper values represent the correlation coefficients between variables when all 40 schools are used, while the lower values represent correlation if 24 schools are used.
causes of the recent increase in productivity. Some economists argue that a purchase of overseas publication is the primary cause for the increased productivity in recent years, whereas most others claim it as domestic; domestic faculty members are publishing more than before. One may also wonder if the increased research performance influences school reputation. Table 3 shows correlation coefficients (r) for several relevant variables. Research productivity that is measured in total page counts appears to be highly correlated with the stock of overseas publications purchased (r = 0.79), which were originally affiliated to a foreign institution at the time of publication but are counted here for his or her current affiliation in Korea. The research productivity of current faculty members is also highly correlated with the students’ college entrance exam (or college aptitude test) scores (r = 0.69), which are reported as a minimum to get in the economics department of each university. The exam scores are thus used as a proxy for student quality. Recently, school fame was ranked for thirty top universities in Korea based upon a survey data conducted by Joong-ang Daily Newspaper (December 17, 2003). Since the way of ranking the fame (e.g. 1 = best, 30 = worst) is to have an awkward negative relationship with other performance-based variables in the model, an inverse of the rank is used here to assign the highest score to the best school and the lowest to the worst. Among top-30 universities surveyed, six schools were not found in our research-based ranking. Only 24 schools are used for analysis. The lower values in Table 4 represent the correlation coefficients between variables when 24 schools are used, while the upper values represent correlation when all 40 schools are used. The results provide evidence that the school fame has a strong positive correlation not only with research performance of current faculty members, but with college entrance exam scores. In other words, the school fame is highly related to faculty performance as well as student quality. However, it is surprising to find
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Table 4 Regression results for research productivity (dependent variable: total pages published) Eq.
Constant
Stock of overseas publication purchased
(1) (2) (3) (4)
1.45 1.44 1.41 1.38
0.49* 0.49* 0.44* 0.44*
(.06) (.06) (.06) (.06)
Public school: 1 = public, 0 = private
Teaching load: 1 if <9 h, 0 otherwise
0.02 (.14) 0.10 (.14)
0.23y (.13) 0.26y (.14)
Obs
Adjusted R2
F
40 40 40 40
0.62 0.61 0.63 0.63
64.4 31.4 35.4 23.4
[.00] [.00] [.00] [.00]
Note: All variables except dummies are in logarithm. The numbers in parenthesis represent standard errors of parameter estimates, and the values in bracket are p-values for F statistics. * Statistical significance at the 5% level y Statistical significance at the 10% level.
that a tradition in higher education, which is measured as the number of years of school history, is no longer strongly related to school fame. The school history is also weakly related to student quality as well as faculty’s research performance. Table 4 further investigates the sources of increased research productivity in recent years. For regression analysis, total pages published are used as a dependent variable. All variables except dummies are taken as logarithms as a heteroscedasticity problem may typically arise in this type of cross-school data, i.e. residuals were observed to be relatively large in higher-rank universities and became smaller in lower ranks. The log-linear model mitigates the measurement scale of the raw data, and thus changes in residuals appear to be smaller. In this case, the heteroscedasticity problem may not be serious. Table 4 provides evidence that changes in overseas publication has a positive impact on domestic productivity, and the impact appears to be significant at the 5% significance level. The size of the impact also appears to be similar in all different specifications of the model. The results are in general consistent with a recent trend that many fine scholars overseas returned to Korea although their performance tended to be less active after being returned. It is also found that the demand for overseas publication depends on the degree of openness of the universities. More open universities in higher ranks are generally found to have a high proportion of overseas publication (30–53% of total pages), while the proportions are relatively low (0–20%) for lower ranks. However, the effect of a public school dummy variable that assigns 1’s if public and 0’s if private appears to be positive but insignificant at the conventional significance levels. The public school includes several national universities, as well as city universities located in Seoul and Incheon. The insignificant effect thus suggests that national universities, on average, perform as much as private universities. This finding is, however, at odds with a general belief in which a decline in research activity until the mid-1990s was largely due to a rigidity of national universities in Korea. In addition, smaller teaching loads were found to help improve research performance. The data for teaching load was recently surveyed by phone calls to all forty economics departments in the sample. Most schools were found to teach 2–4 classes per semester (equivalently, 6–12 h per week). Although real teaching load may vary depending on
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Table 5 Regression results for school fame (dependent variable: ‘inverse’ of school fame’) Eq.
Constant
Entrance exam (scores)
(1) (2) (3) (4)
14.44 14.18 8.96 8.86
5.78* 5.52* 3.45* 3.28*
(1.39) (1.39) (.07) (1.61)
Tradition/history (number of years)
Research productivity (total pages)
0.22 (.24) 0.19 (.22)
0.17* (.07) 0.17* (.07)
Obs
Adjusted R2
F
24 24 24 24
0.41 0.41 0.51 0.51
17.2 9.0 13.3 9.0
[.00] [.00] [.00] [.00]
Note: Dependent variable is measured as an inverse of school fame (e.g., 1 = best, 0.5 = 2nd best, and so forth). All independent variables are in logarithm. The numbers in parenthesis represent standard errors of parameter estimates, and the values in bracket are p-values for F statistics. * Statistical significance at the 5% level.
undergraduate or graduate courses as well as the number of preparations, 3 classes per semester (9 h per week) appeared to be an average among these top-40 schools in Korea. To find the productivity effects of teaching load, a dummy variable of one was assigned if the current teaching load was less than 9 h per week, and zero otherwise. The results are in general consistent with the general belief that people may produce more if their teaching load is reduced; the impacts are statistically significant at the 10% significance level.7 Table 5 shows another estimation results in which school fame was regressed on college entrance exam, school tradition, and research performance. The variable for overseas publications was not included in this model due to a potential statistical problem of collinearity with total research performance (r = 0.79 in Table 3). The dependent variable in this case was an inverse of the rank of school fame surveyed, and only 24 schools were estimated due to availability of the data for school fame. Although the degrees of freedom problem may arise, the effect of college entrance exam that is used as a proxy for student quality appears to be positive and statistically significant at the 5% significance level. Surprisingly, however, the number of years of school history has no significant effect on school fame; the effects are found to be positive but insignificant even at the 10% significance level. The fame, however, significantly depends upon research performance of current faculty members. The effect of research productivity on school fame appears to be positive and statistically significant. Therefore, research matters. Notice, however, that when research productivity is added in Eqs. (3) and (4), the size of the effects of college entrance exam drops, but statistical significance remains almost intact. The size of the effects of research productivity also remains intact even in different model specifications (3) and (4). Thus, multicollinearity problems may not be serious in this model specification. 7 It would also be interesting to run a regression to examine whether cash incentives, as noted earlier, really raised publication in Korea. This could be done using a dummy variable for the years in which cash incentives were actually implemented in each university. However, the panel data for cash incentives are unavailable in public and difficult to obtain, although the same type of data for annual publication are readily available for each university in each year.
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4. International comparison Although the data show that most economists in top-tier Korean universities are now active in research, how do their schools compare with other East Asian and U.S. universities? Jin and Yao (1999) directly compared East Asian universities using top-36 journals over the period 1990–1996, and they found that Seoul National University at that time ranked number eight in East Asia though its performance was about 12% of the top school in East Asia.8 If the performance were further compared with U.S. universities, the two most productive schools in Korea would rank perhaps around 100th to 150th at that time.9 The weak performance in research until the mid-1990s was largely due to the rigidity of education system in Korea. For example, a faculty appointed in economics was considered a permanent job—professors rarely got fired for sub-par performance. Their pay also rose independently of research performance, and thus research incentives were minimal. Much larger emphasis was given to teaching as opposed to research, even in top schools in Korea. What made matters worse, academic research was not appreciated in Korea until the mid1990s, while contract research with firms and the government was more attractive due to cash compensation. Recently, however, many universities finally mapped out a strategy to survive. One of them is cash incentives for international journal publication, which is regarded as a unique method to discriminate the pay scale based upon quality research. Another marked change is an introduction of contract-based employment for new faculty members, which also allows labor mobility to be more flexible even within domestic markets. The research environment has been, in general, favorable to fine research scholars since the mid-1990s and many overseas academics are also noticed to return to Korea. Since then, research performance has unprecedentedly increased especially in top-tier schools in Korea. Although a self-financed program that sets up a separate budget for each department in each university and enforces independent management of financial and personnel matters will provide further motivation to enhance research activity, many universities till now hesitate to establish such programs. Table 6 compares the most recent research productivity in Korea with those in other East Asian and U.S. universities although it is difficult to compare the research productivity qualitatively across countries. Dusansky and Vernon (1998) ranked U.S. universities using eight ‘‘blue ribbon’’ A-journals only, and their annual average page counts are reported in the last column of Table 6.10 Jin and Yao (1999) counted both A and B journals (i.e. top-36 journals) for East Asian universities to account for English as a second language in East 8 In the East Asian ranking (Jin & Yao, 1999), Korea University was not included in its top-10. At that time, the Korea University ranked 12th in East Asia. This was either because the East Asian ranking counted quality journals only or because the sample period used for the East Asian ranking was only up to 1996. 9 University of Tsukuba ranked 6th in East Asia, which was equivalent to Wayne State University (U.S. rank 76th) or Temple University (U.S. rank 77th). The research performance of Seoul National at that time was only two-thirds of Tsukuba. 10 The eight blue ribbon journals are American Economic Review, Econometrica, International Economic Review, Journal of Economic Theory, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies, and Review of Economics and Statistics.
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Table 6 International comparison: annual average pages published by school
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 a b c d e
Top-36b Top-8c East Asian Universities All journals, international journals, 1994–2003 1994–2003 journalsa, 1994–2003
Korea 150.0 Seoul National 110.2 Hanyang 86.7 Sogang 65.5 Yonsei 45.4 Sungkyunkwan 44.6 Chonnam 30.4 Kookmin 28.8 Dongguk 20.0 Sookmyung 19.3
29.87 23.47 7.90 8.44 4.46 5.47 1.22 5.13 3.11 2.02
1.84 4.33 0.18 0.62 0.08 0.31 0.00 0.56 0.00 0.18
Top-36 journals,d U.S. 1990–1996 Universities (Jin & Yao, 1999)
Hong Kong University of Science and Technology 115.6 Chinese University of Hong Kong 88.4 Tokyo University 60.8 National Taiwan University 34.6 National University of Singapore 27.3 University of Tsukuba 23.1 University of Hong Kong 18.3 Seoul National University 13.9 City University of Hong Kong 11.3 Osaka University 10.3
The third column in Table 1, divided by 10 years. AER-equivalent pages as in Jin and Yao (1999), divided by 10 years. Quantity- and quality-weighted pages as in Dusansky and Vernon (1998), divided by 10 years. AER-equivalent pages. The first column in Table 1 of Jin and Yao (1999), divided by 7 years. Quantity- and quality-weighted pages. The first column in Table 1 of Dusansky and Vernon (1998), divided by 5 years.
Top-8 journals,e 1990–1994 (Dusansky & Vernon, 1998)
Harvard 103.7 Princeton 96.6 U of Penn 79.4 MIT 79.3 Yale 73.9 Northwestern 70.5 Boston 63.7 NYU 58.9 Berkeley 52.6 Stanford 51.1
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Rank Korean Universities
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Asia and to allow for the degree of difficulty of publishing Asian regional studies in top journals.11 For Korean universities, C journals were also included. In addition, the most recent 10 years were used as a sample period to make up for the delayed openness of Korean universities although an identical sample period is desirable to be used for the purpose of comparison. Only top-10 schools were evaluated. In this way, the research productivity of the Korean universities bears favorable comparison with those in other East Asian universities and even with top schools in the U.S. However, research productivity falls off dramatically in the lower ranked universities in Korea, as well as in East Asia; this contrasts with more gradual drops in productivity one moves down the rank of U.S. universities. However, one might object to this type of international comparison because journal quality and sample periods were adjusted favorably to Korean schools. To compare directly with other East Asian universities, the second column in Table 6 counts top-36 journals only, and these pages are converted to AER-equivalent pages as in Jin and Yao (1999). The most recent 10 years are used as a sample period. Despite some variations in lower ranks, the domestic ranking remained intact for top-2 schools in Korea. Korea University appears to perform slightly better than National University of Singapore (rank 5th in East Asia), and Seoul National University is found to perform similar to University of Tsukuba in Japan (rank 6th in East Asia). The performance of these two schools is also similar to Wayne State University (U.S. rank 76th) and Temple University (U.S. rank 77th) in the U.S. ranking (see Table 3 in Scott & Mitias, 1996).12 The third column in Table 6 further counts top-8 journals only and these pages are adjusted using both quantity- and quality-weights as in Dusansky and Vernon (1998). In other words, total pages are converted to AER-equivalent pages, which are again multiplied by the Laband and Piette (1994) impact factors that are based on citations to different journals. In this case, some schools suffer from the penalty more than double if the professional impact of the journals published is small. Accordingly, the last column shows that entire faculty members even at top U.S. schools seem to publish less than expected. Most Korean schools publish less than one page per year. The annual average performance of the two most productive Korean schools (1.84 and 4.33 pages, respectively) is found to be far below 8.56 pages of Georgetown University, a school of rank number 50 in the U.S. (see the first column in Table 1, Dusansky & Vernon, 1998). Table 7 further computes the research productivity per faculty to take into account department size. Dusansky and Vernon (1998) listed top-50 U.S. universities, but no Korean schools were found to match them in quality research. Scott and Mitias (1996) 11
The top-36 journals include top-8 journals mentioned above plus 28 quality journals: Economic Inquiry, Economic Journal, Economica, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Journal of Business, Journal of Development Economics, Journal of Econometrics, Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Journal of Economic History, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Human Resources, Journal of International Economics, Journal of International Money and Finance, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Law and Economics, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Journal of Legal Studies, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Regional Science, Journal of Urban Economics, National Tax Journal, Public Choice, Rand Journal, and Southern Economic Journal. 12 I thank David Ahlstrom and an anonymous referee for suggesting this type of direct comparison.
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Table 7 Annual average pages per faculty member: top-36 journals, comparison with U.S. universities Rank
Korean University
1994–2003a
Rank
U.S. universities
1984–1993b
1 2
Korea Seoul National
1.45 0.73
65/66 78/79
Colorado/Georgia State South Carolina/Temple
1.54/1.36 0.94/0.64
a The annual average pages shown in the second column of Table 6, divided by the number of faculty members (as of December 2003). b The department average shown in the first column of Table 4, Scott and Mitias (1996), divided by 10 years.
counted AER-equivalent pages in top-36 journals and reported a department average for top-80 U.S. universities. The department average was then divided by the number of sample years to compute annual average pages per faculty member in U.S. universities. For Korean schools, the annual average pages of the department computed in the second column of Table 6 were divided by the number of faculty members (as of December 2003). For the purpose of comparison with U.S. universities, only top-2 schools are included, which have counterparts in the U.S. ranking. The annual average pages per faculty in Korea University fall between Colorado and Georgia State University (U.S. ranks 65th and 66th, respectively). Seoul National University is observed to be similar to South Carolina and Temple University (U.S. ranks 78th and 79th, respectively). Therefore, several direct comparisons reconfirm our general belief that the research performance of the two most productive schools in Korea is approximately equivalent to second-tier state universities in the U.S. The results are, in general, robust across quality journals as well as disaggregated measures of research productivity. Although their international ranking has been improved recently, research output of the top Korean schools is still lagging behind the ‘four little dragons’ in Asia, and cannot challenge comparison with major state universities in the U.S.
5. Concluding remarks This paper has updated a previous ranking of economics departments in Korea based upon page counts of articles published in international refereed journals. The page counts were employed to capture many variations in the length of articles. A wide range in the size of departments was adjusted by computing per capita productivity. The sources of rising productivity were investigated using a regression model. The fame of a school was also estimated to find whether or not research does matter. A key feature of the finding is summarized as follows. First, research productivity in Korean economics departments has improved substantially since the mid-1990s. Recent research performance over the period 1994–2003 dominates past research, and thus a recent ranking most likely determines an overall ranking of the entire sample period. Second, the rapid growth of productivity in the last 10 years is found to be largely due to an increase in the purchase of overseas publications one brings to a department. Perhaps, the spillover effect might also have been significant to improve research environment. Third, while an increase in research activity leads to a higher reputation of a school, a school
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tradition that is measured as the number of years of school history has little impact on school fame in terms of its reputation. Fourth, this updated information does not support the general belief that economics departments were less productive in national universities than in private universities. Fifth, when journal quality and sample periods were adjusted favorably to Korean schools, the research productivity of top-tier Korean universities bears favorable comparison with those in other East Asian universities and even with top schools in the United States. However, when quality journals were used for direct comparison, the research performance of the two most productive schools in Korea could not be compared to major state universities in the U.S. and was still lagging behind even in Asia. Finally, this ranking procedure based solely on page counts reaches its limits. Like Nobel laureates, the impact of their scientific achievements in their field might be more important than the number of publications. Quality-adjusted rankings should be considered in any future.
Acknowledgements I am grateful for helpful comments from Brian Bridges, Lok-sang Ho, Jung-hoon Lee, and other seminar participants. I also thank David Ahlstrom and two anonymous referees for helpful comments and suggestions. Able research assistance was received from Doyoung Kim during his visit to Chinese University of Hong Kong. The author alone is responsible for any errors in this paper.
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