Are returns to research quality lower in agricultural economics than in economics?

Abstract

We compare effects of research quality and quantity on the salary of academics in agricultural economics and economics departments of the same universities. Agricultural economists get a significantly lower payoff to research quality, whether measured by quality-weighted journal articles (based on nine different weighting schemes) or by citations. Instead, salary depends on the quantity of journal articles, while article counts have no independent effect on economist salaries. These differences in the reward structure for research are not due to either the extension focus of agricultural economists or to disciplinary differences in publishing with students and instead may reflect institutional factors that govern incentives within universities. One-third of academics in the agricultural economics departments studied here have doctoral training in economics; the very different disciplinary reward structures may cause frustration for these faculty due to the muted returns to research quality that agricultural economics departments seem to offer.