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Plain English Summary: Publishing entrepreneurship research is not just important but challenging. Longstanding experts in the field can provide helpful advice. As borders between academic fields blur, research fields are increasingly global in their perspective, knowledge, and findings, thus enabling robust participation in research fields at a scale previously unimaginable. Drawing on the experience, insights, and perspectives of three seasoned editors, we try to reconcile the seemingly incoherent and inherent frustration experienced by researchers, on the one hand, with the very purposeful and self-aware process of at least one scholarly journal, Small Business Economics: An Entrepreneurship Journal, on the other, to provide guidelines and insights to aspiring authors in what they should consider in crafting their research for submission with the goal of publication. In providing this sage council, the paper provides guidance to researchers on the process of publishing their results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyze text data in all the articles published in the top five (T5) economics journals between 2002 and 2019 in order to find gender differences in their research approach. We implement an unsupervised machine learning algorithm: the structural topic model (STM), so as to incorporate gender document-level meta-data into a probabilistic text model. This algorithm characterizes jointly the set of latent topics that best fits our data (the set of abstracts) and how the documents/abstracts are allocated to each topic. Latent topics are mixtures over words where each word has a probability of belonging to a topic after controlling by journal name and publication year (the meta-data). Thus, the topics may capture research fields but also other more subtle characteristics related to the way in which the articles are written. We find that females are unevenly distributed over the estimated latent topics. This and other findings rely on "automatically" generated built-in data given the contents in the abstracts of the articles in the T5 journals, without any arbitrary allocation of texts to particular categories (as JEL codes, or research areas). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, social scientists have begun to study the implications of increasing pressures in the early academic career. Studies focusing mostly on the life sciences have shown junior scholars making research decisions based on a productivity logic to increase their chances of career success. In this paper, we extend this literature to the very different context of economics, characterized by a dominant mainstream, a clear hierarchy, and an independent/small-team approach to scholarship. Adopting a culture-in-action framework, we analyze how cultural repertoires help early career economists deal with the sometimes competing career pressures associated with working in high-status departments. Drawing from in-depth interviews with tenure-track economists in three Scandinavian countries, we find that skillful use of discovery-talk and delivery-talk helps respondents respond to the challenges they face as junior academics. Implications for research include the avoidance of, e.g., interdisciplinary work and questions of only regional importance. Furthermore, the data indicate that discovery and delivery notions partly overlap and so contribute to preserving economics as a relatively coherent and homogenous field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author examines the role of economics in consumer protection, drawing from her experience at the U. S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), which has a dual mandate to promote competition and protect consumers. She compares the long established use of economics in competition law enforcement and policy to the relatively new application of economic analysis to consumer protection policy and law enforcement. She highlights contributions of economists to the development of consumer protection policy at the FTC and describes key questions involved in the economics of consumer protection policy. The focus of this article is on the definition and estimation of consumer injury from deceptive or unfair practices, including approaches to estimate consumer injury from lapses in data security and privacy policies and procedures. The paper brings together different strains of relevant economic literature, leading to a clearer exposition of alternative approaches to estimating consumer injury from an economic perspective. She also addresses, briefly, the debate over the role of behavioral economics in consumer policy, concluding that the appropriate tools for policymakers will vary depending upon their policy goals; policies appropriate to meet the goal of changing consumer choices in a particular direction may differ from policies suitable to meet the goal of improving the consumer information environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper defends that it is possible to offer a Kantian argument for justifying the introduction of Universal Basic Income (UBI). It first briefly presents Philippe van Parijs' argument for UBI based on the concept of real freedom for all. In doing so, it will focus on its general structure and central insight, without entering too much into other issues like the economic feasibility of UBI. It second briefly presents Kant's concept of external freedom and especially focuses on some of its components to assess whether there is some closeness to van Parijs' concept of real freedom. It further considers whether UBI is not only compatible with a Kantian position, but can be justified from such a position because it represents a tool for concretely realizing external freedom as presented in the Doctrine of Right and for attaining the ethical ideal of virtuosity presented in the Doctrine of Virtue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an overview of RePEc a digital platform for the dissemination of research in economics. Specifically, the focus is on RePEc's main author ranking, which aggregates 36 different rankings based on a range of criteria. I first describe the logic behind the ranking and then presents some key descriptive statistics on the top 5% of authors. Notably, the ranking is dominated by English-speaking authors, particularly those affiliated with institutions in the USA. Moreover, less than 9% of authors are female, while around 6% are deceased. Among the living authors, the estimated average age is 60, with over 21% of them aged 70 or above. Next, I discuss the aggregation of the 36 rankings using the harmonic mean—RePEc's preferred method. Some counterintuitive properties are highlighted. Finally, I propose a simpler ranking system based on two criteria—number of journal pages and number of citations—that weight journals and citations according to their qualities and also correct for the number of authors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Politics, like any social system, involves selection mechanisms. This paper presents a model of politics as an evolutionary process. Our model yields three main results. First, the political process selects for efficient policies in the long run. We call that attribute asymptotic efficiency. Second, bargaining amongst interest groups bounds the inefficiencies that can exist in the short run. Potential inefficiency declines when organizing interest groups becomes less costly. Finally, policies that appear to be inefficient in a static analysis can be efficient once economists consider the dynamic nature of political decisions. We argue that viewing the political process as a selection mechanism allows political economists to use efficiency as a criterion for positive economic analysis. In our approach, applied political economy involves looking for relevant costs that make the policy efficient. However, our approach does not rob political economists of the ability to make meaningful normative statements; it only constrains the type of statements made. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Stigler (Bell J Econ Manag Sci 2:3–21, 1971) proposed that regulation benefits politically influential interest groups rather than advancing the public interest. The Stiglarian perspective predicts that regulation raises barriers to entry that limit competition and creates economic rents for incumbents. Apart from the direct economic harm of such policies, regulation generates additional consequences. One hypothesized consequence ushered by anticompetitive rules is the widening of income disparities. This article therefore surveys the growing empirical literature that studies whether regulation ultimately exacerbates income inequality. Beginning with the literature on entry and start-up regulation, we find that these rules, as predicted by Stigler, limit entry and dampen entrepreneurship. Moreover, recent studies also indicate that these regulations are associated with higher income inequality. We also review the literature on occupational licensure. Consistent with Stigler (Bell J Econ Manag Sci 2:3–21, 1971), the literature chronicles widespread use of barriers to entry in labor markets, which have documented regressive effects on the distribution of income. Finally, we review research on financial regulation, in which studies have shown that some financial regulations are associated with less entrepreneurship and higher income inequality. Taken together, the recent empirical literature buttresses and extends the implications in Stigler (Bell J Econ Manag Sci 2:3–21, 1971). Regulation tends to benefit incumbents by limiting entry of economic participants, be it firms or workers, and exacerbates income inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development economists have suggested that the hopes of the poor are a relevant factor in overcoming poverty. I argue that Kant's approach to hope provides an important complement to the economists' perspective. A Kantian account of hope emphasizes the need for the rationality of hope and thereby guards against problematic aspects of the economists' discourse on hope. Section 1 introduces recent work on hope in development economics. Section 2 clarifies Kant's question "What may I hope?" and presents the outlines of his answer. Crucially, hope is rational if it is rational to trust in the structures of reality on which the realization of one's hope depends. Section 3 argues that central tenets of Kant's account of what makes hope rational can be applied to the context of poverty. It becomes apparent that the poor often have good reason to be hopeless since they may not trust fundamental structures that are necessary for realizing their hope. Thus, the insight that the poor need more hope must go hand in hand with a commitment to establishing trustworthy political structures, such that their hope can be rational. Section 4 highlights the relevance of the secular highest good for a better understanding of the justification and scope of our duties to the poor in a Kantian framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To what extent are the outcomes of economic regulation intended and desired by its proponents? To address that question, we combine Stigler's theory of regulatory capture with the Austrian theory of the dynamics of interventionism. We reframe Stigler's theory of regulatory capture as an analytical starting point for a dynamic theory of interventionism, one accounting for the unintended consequences that emerge from regulation, even if the origins of such regulation were designed to benefit a particular industry or special interest group. Therefore, we argue that regulatory capture is not necessarily inconsistent with a dynamic theory of intervention. We illustrate our theoretical point by applying it to an econometric case study of electric utility regulation and its eventual nationalization in both Ontario and Quebec in the early twentieth century, resulting in unintended and undesirable consequences that deviated from the interests of the regulation's intended beneficiaries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

George Stigler's "The Theory of Economic Regulation" (Bell J Econ Manag Sci 2(1):3–21, 1971) is a landmark in the economics of regulation. It used simple public choice reasoning to set out the "capture theory" of regulation whereby "... as a rule, regulation is acquired by the industry and is designed and operated primarily for its benefit." This article, summarizes the context within which Stigler (1971) appeared and evaluates its long run impact. A central argument is the need to distinguish "acquired" from "designed and operated." The rule that regulation is produced in response to industry pressure seems honored mainly in the breach. Maintenance of the institutional status quo seems the more common industry goal. However, once the status quo is altered, the industry interest will, as Stigler argued, receive disproportionate weight. I discuss and analyze the varying impact of industry interests over three significant regulatory transitions—in transportation, pharmaceuticals and banking. I conclude that the durable impact of Stigler (1971) comes from the public choice framing and the consequent importance of organized interests to analysis of regulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In George Stigler's (1971) economic theory of regulation, the primary motive of regulatory intervention is the promotion of private interests, not the promotion of the general welfare or efficiency as suggested by the public interest theory of regulation (Pigou 1932). More recently, Andrei Shleifer (2010, 2012) along with some coauthors (Glaeser & Shleifer 2003; Djankov et al. 2003) has proposed an alternative to Stigler's theory, which he calls the enforcement theory of regulation. Shleifer's new theory of regulation holds that the rise of regulatory institutions over the course of the twentieth century is in fact efficient and providing the requisite social control of business, largely because the alternative judicial mechanism is so inefficient and costly. Contrary to Shleifer, we argue here that because both courts and regulation are subject to ex-post defection, individual bias, and subversion, neither is categorically preferable. Whether or not courts or regulation are more efficient at providing social control of business ultimately depends on the features of the specific regulatory or judicial institutions as well as the economic problem addressed. Institutional environments differ with respect to the severity of knowledge and incentive problems and mechanisms for overcoming them that are built into them. The comparative efficiency of an institutional solution depends more on its institutional features (centralized/decentralized, contested/uncontested) than its form (regulation, courts, or private orderings). Stigler's (1971) contribution acknowledges that concern implicitly by incorporating competition between different interest groups as the essential mechanisms driving regulatory outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

George Stigler's pathbreaking 1971 article set forth a clear and testable economic theory of regulation and fundamentally changed how economists and others organized their thoughts about government regulation. Until Stigler's work appeared, the public interest theory, the notion that elected officials and bureaucrats sought first to respond to the broad public desire for government services, dominated the literature. Stigler changed that and in doing so pushed the public interest theory aside. But there was something lacking in Stigler's regulation theory that suggests there is still a strong role to be played by the public interest theory. While Stigler argued that politicians respond primarily to private interest demand for their services, it is still the case that politicians must explain their actions to the broad public and must work to make certain that the private interest regulatory benefits they produce are actually delivered. Justification and assurance of delivery are functions that are served in the Bootlegger/Baptist theory of regulation. Because the Bootlegger/Baptist theory combines the demand of two interest groups for the same regulatory service, the result will be more regulation. And the fact that both Bootleggers and Baptists will assist in seeing that regulation benefits are delivered, their activity reduces the cost encountered by politicians when seeking to serve the two groups. Again, more regulation will result. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two radically different descriptions of immigrant earnings trajectories in the USA have emerged. One asserts that immigrant men, following the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, have low initial earnings and high earnings growth. Another asserts that the post-1965 immigrants have low initial earnings and low earnings growth. We describe the methodological issues that create this divide and show that low earnings growth becomes high earnings growth when immigrants are followed from their initial years in the USA; earnings growth is allowed to vary with entry earnings; and—when following cohorts instead of individuals—sample restrictions commonly used by labor economists are avoided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]