Ranking research records of economics departments in New Zealand: Comment

Abstract

This comment argues that Ian King's (2002) ranking of research records in New Zealand economics departments is an example of A. N. Whitehead's (1953) ‘misplaced concreteness’. Nearly 60 per cent of the total scores calculated by King are due to just five academic stars, all of whom published their high‐scoring papers overseas before coming to New Zealand. The comment also argues that it would not be appropriate to use a method such as that adopted by King for guiding performance‐based research funding.

Notes

Commerce Division, P.O. Box 84, Lincoln University, Canterbury. E‐mail Address: [email protected]

We are grateful to Tim Hazledine for his invitation to write this note and for insightful suggestions for improving an earlier draft. We also thank Ian King for providing us with this worksheets and Ian MacDonald for helpful comments.