In this paper, we investigate the informational content of citation-based research evaluations. To illustrate our analysis we refer to the 2005 Handelsblatt ranking of German academic economists. We make extensive use of the recently developed Hirsch-index and relate citation incidence to...

We consider a country where a king assigns benefits in accordance with privilege determined by the population’s proximity to the throne. People have different relative advantages in seeking privilege and in productive activity. The nature of the contest for privilege determines whether, in...