Presentations

• 2025: Brown Bag Seminar, Erasmus School of Economics; PhD Seminar, Erasmus School of Economics; UK Department for Education

Abstract

Science disproportionately relies on top researchers to evaluate the work of others, potentially diverting their scarce time from producing new knowledge. Using random assignment of evaluators in Italy’s national academic promotion system, we show that committees with better-published members select candidates who subsequently receive more citations and experience faster career advancement. Better-published evaluators also change committee dynamics: they raise peers’ effort and induce convergence toward more impact-focused evaluation criteria, consistent with reputational pressures. Committee service, however, carries opportunity costs. Serving on a two-year committee reduces evaluators’ own publication output by about 20% of a typical year’s production, with particularly large effects for highly productive researchers working in small teams. These findings suggest that evaluation systems that account for peer effects and heterogeneous opportunity costs – through committee design and service allocation – can improve evaluation efficiency while reducing the overall burden on science.

Citation

Not circulated.