Peter J. Boettke wrote: >... But the bottom line problem with this >entrepreneurial hope in the market for academic economics is that we don't >have institutions that serve the functions analogous to property, prices and >profit and loss.
The standard story is that authors have a property right in their articles, which are in effect sold to students, and research patrons. Journals and universities are intermediaries in this process, but all these transactions seem to voluntary, and real money is on the line. What's wrong with this story? >P.S.: Robin, I think the statement that entry is cheap is a little dubious. >We go through an entire process ... graduate school ... getting a job. ... The topic was entry into the journal industry, which takes even more effort than entry into the professor industry. But I meant "easy" in the industrial organization sense of closer to free entry than to monopoly. I'm sure its not easy to be a farmer, but farming also seems to be an industry where entry is easy enough to keep the industry competitive. >... Scholarship should never be cheap, nor easy, nor kind ... >but I think it is at best a noble lie to believe that the truth wins out in >academics ... Careerism, fadism, cults of personality, and generally a >waste of intellectual resources describe academic life, not truth seeking >and original thinking. I would have thought you'd be more sympathetic. I agree that academia wastes vast resources relative to the goal of seeking truth, but I disagree that this implies a market failure, mainly because I don't think the ultimate customers fundamentally want truth. In fact, I think customers in part want faddism and cults of personality. My working model of academia is that students and research patrons primarily pay to be associated with people who are publicly validated to be smart in certain ways. People try to show that they are smart by publishing writings that are articulate, clever, thought-provoking, require difficult techniques, and anticipate fads. Truth is often a side-effect, but is incidental to the main purposes of the parties involved. Different academic disciplines have settled into equilibria with different mixtures of these elements. I think this model can explain many otherwise puzzling features of academia. [We had a similar discussion of this topic on this list last November] Robin Hanson [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://hanson.gmu.edu Asst. Prof. Economics, George Mason University MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030-4444 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323