Four Essays on University Economics - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

0,45
0,05
Economic research in Switzerland
Figure 1.4: Average research quality of the six Swiss universities
0,4
0,35
0,3
0,25
0,2
0,15
0,1
0
90/91 91/92 92/93 93/94 94/95 95/96 96/97 97/98 98/99 99/00 00/01 01/02 02/03 03/04
Basel Bern Genf Lausanne St. Gallen Zürich
Own calculation: moving two year averages of the average quality (according to the
weighting CL)
is displayed in Figure 1.4.
A steady increase in the average quality of research can only be observed for the Univer-
sity of St. Gallen whose publications were rated lowest at the beginning of the observation
period. The index of average research quality for St. Gallen more than doubled from
1990/1991 to 2003/2004. At the beginning of this period, the economists from St. Gallen
published almost exclusively in journals of the lowest category ( 1
12
= 0.08). Today, the
index of average research quality is approximately 0.25; this corresponds to a quality level
of journals that enjoy an international reputation.
In general, the average quality of research produced at the six universities converged. We
interpret this but to imply that over the last 15 years, more and more faculty members be-
came active in research; the “law of large numbers” renders extreme averages unlikely; the
averages thus converge. Our result also indicates that the university system in Switzerland
is not structured hierarchically. Until now, at least, no elite departments have emerged.
The surge in research output that we identified in section 1.3 is thus not due to an overall
increase in research quality. Rather, it documents the fact that the number of published
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