Many European countries have adopted the American model of doctoral training and academic evaluation. While this model suits America’s vast, mobile labour market, in Europe it has created perverse incentives and distorted research priorities. This column argues that Europe needs a more pluralistic, socially grounded, and inclusive system for the training of economists. It proposes a two-track approach for PhD training and evaluation that balances both frontier research and applied economics and policy. Europe should also consider broader evaluation and promotion criteria, more diversified PhD programmes, invest in policy-oriented research institutes, and promote the social relevance of the discipline.
Over the past three decades, European economics has increasingly imported the American model of doctoral training and academic evaluation. At its centre lies the so-called top-five model: career advancement depends primarily on publishing in five elite journals: the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and the Review of Economic Studies.
This system has profoundly reshaped incentives for PhD students, young scholars, and departments across Europe. While the model may suit the scale and structure of the US academic market, its wholesale adoption in many European countries has created perverse incentives, distorted research priorities, and diminished the social relevance of economics.
In this column, we argue that Europe needs a more pluralistic, socially grounded, and inclusive system for the training of economists than the US system. Rather than aiming at a one-track race to the top five, European PhD programmes and academic evaluations should be restructured around a two-track model: one that values both frontier academic research and problem-driven policy analysis.
The problems with the top-five model
A costly and unrealistic tournament
The probability of getting published in a top-five journal is close to zero. In Sweden, since 2010, there has been on average only one annual article in a top-five journal authored solely by Sweden-based economists who had not previously published in those outlets. Similar figures hold across Europe.
For most young scholars, this means spending five or six years polishing a single manuscript, only to see it rejected repeatedly (Conley and Önder 2014). The opportunity cost is enormous. Promising projects are abandoned if they lack ‘top-five potential’. Talented economists may exit academia altogether after years of unproductive effort. The system is thus a classic case of misallocated resources: an expensive tournament in which most players lose, taxpayers foot the bill, and society is deprived of potentially valuable insights and contributions.
Narrowing the scope of research
The dominance of the top five encourages a culture where the methods and the preferences of a select group of editors with highly similar backgrounds define the proper issues of research. Scholars engineer their projects to align with the present fashions and models of US editorial boards. The safest path to publication is to replicate or extend existing studies rather than tackle messy, multidimensional problems.
Topics of pressing national importance – such as labour market institutions, welfare reforms, or regional development – are often sidelined because they lack broad appeal in Chicago, Stanford, or Boston. In practice, it is more attractive to work with US data than with domestic data, since this increases the chances of acceptance in the top five. As a result, European societies fund economists who spend years studying problems which are largely irrelevant to their home countries.
This bias is reinforced by co-authorship dynamics. The easiest way for a European scholar to break into the top five is to ‘team up’ with a well-known US economist, but this raises questions about who contributed what – and whether the European researcher is being rewarded for networking skills rather than intellectual originality.
Exclusion and declining pluralism
The one-track system excludes many promising economists. Those inclined towards applied policy analysis, interdisciplinary work, or public engagement find little recognition for their contributions. For small European countries, this exclusion is especially damaging; government ministries, central banks, public administrations, and firms urgently need skilled economists. Yet PhD programmes increasingly prepare graduates only for the narrowest form of academic competition.
Pluralism also suffers. The preference for certain methods – natural experiments, difference-in-differences, or randomised controlled trials – discourages alternative approaches that could shed light on complex, multi-causal social problems. But then, economics risks becoming ‘precisely wrong rather than approximately right’; elegant methods applied to narrow questions are of limited societal value.
Why the US model does not fit Europe
Elite US universities can sustain the top-five model because they operate in a vast, mobile labour market. Even those who ‘fail’ in the publication race often secure jobs in mid-tier universities. Departments can diversify by field and method, adopting a portfolio approach without recruiting economists with a top-five background.
In Europe, by contrast, PhD cohorts are small, academic jobs are scarce, and domestic outlets are limited. The US model becomes a blunt instrument: one that wastes scarce talent and deters diversity. Worse, European universities often lack the resources to replicate the US system. They cannot afford the luxury of rejecting applied, policy-relevant research – but by copying the top-five model, they end up doing just that.
A two-track model for European economics
To address the risks of the top-five approach in Europe, we propose a two-track model for PhD training and evaluation.
Track 1: Frontier research
The first track should remain focused on frontier theoretical and empirical research, aimed at contributing to global debates. This requires rigorous training, international publishing, and collaboration with peers worldwide.
Track 2: Applied economics and policy
The second track should focus on applied, problem-driven research. This track would prepare economists not only for academic work but also for careers in ministries, public administration, central banks, research institutes, business, and civil society. Training should emphasise empirical breadth, interdisciplinary approaches, evaluation of policy interventions, and effective communication with policymakers and the public.
Crucially, neither track should be considered second-class. Both are vital for a healthy economics profession in Europe.
Broader evaluation criteria
Evaluation systems must also change. Hiring and promotion must reward more than just top-five publications. Broader criteria could include:
- Diversity of outputs: monographs, policy reports, and specialised journals alongside international articles.
- Breadth of knowledge: familiarity with domestic institutions, ability to teach across fields, and interdisciplinary competence.
- Public engagement: op-eds, popular writing, and advisory work.
- Collaboration: meaningful interdisciplinary and cross-sector projects.
Such reforms would revive the older European tradition of economists as both scholars and public intellectuals – a tradition exemplified by Knut Wicksell, John Maynard Keynes, Gustav Cassel, Walter Eucken, and Bertil Ohlin, who combined excellent academic work with active engagement in policy and debate.
Institutional reforms
Turning this vision into practice requires institutional reforms:
1. Diversified PhD programmes
Smaller universities should not be forced to mimic US-style training. Instead, they should develop doctoral programmes with distinctive profiles – regional, transport, or energy economics, for example – reflecting their existing expertise.
2. Policy-oriented research institutes
New institutes tied to universities can bridge academia with policy. Sweden already has successful examples – the Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy (IFAU) in Uppsala or the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI) in Stockholm – but similar centres should be developed elsewhere.
3. Trial lectures and outreach requirements
Teaching demonstrations and requirements for public communication should be reinstated. Economists must not only publish for peers but also explain their findings to students, policymakers, and citizens in general.
4. Adjustment for co-authorship
When evaluating candidates, merit should be divided by the number of co-authors, and journals should require disclosure of individual contributions. This would reduce the incentive to free-ride on prestigious collaborators.
The declining social relevance of economics
The current system risks eroding the role of economists in society. In Sweden, the once-strong tradition of economists shaping the public debate has weakened. Today, political scientists and sociologists increasingly fill that role. Surveys confirm the disconnect: a global poll of 10,000 economists found widespread dissatisfaction with current research priorities. Respondents wanted more policy relevance, greater interdisciplinarity, and a willingness to challenge the conventional wisdom (Andre and Falk 2021).
The danger is a real one: if economists retreat into methodological self-reference, they will be replaced by other social scientists when it comes to providing relevant insights to governments and the public. Economics is, after all, a social science. If it ceases to speak to society’s pressing issues, it risks losing its raison d’être.
Source : VOXeu
