Choice Group Seminar by Remco Heesen (LSE Philosophy): Peer Review Errors and the Gender Productivity Gap

Abstract:

The gender productivity gap (GPG) is the phenomenon that in academia, women publish fewer articles than men. A recent proposal highlights women’s expectation of gender bias in peer review – motivating them to put more effort into each article – as a potential explanation. Using a rational choice model in which academics act as credit seekers, I investigate when such expectations predict a GPG. I show that whether a GPG arises depends on academics’ expectations of credit from their weakest published articles. This complicates an earlier finding by Liam Kofi Bright which suggests that expectations of gender bias are necessary and sufficient for a GPG to arise among credit-seeking academics. If one buys into some recent claims about the replicability crisis, my findings also suggest a normative conclusion: men should publish less, rather than women publishing more.

Remco Heesen is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE.

This event will take place in person on LSE’s campus. However, those unable to attend in person will have the option of taking part online.

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• Zoom link for this for this meeting: https://lse.zoom.us/j/6613924533 

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