This paper investigates into the factors responsible for variations in participation of economists of different countries in academic and professional activities reflected in their intellectual output. It is based on the data published by the Internet Documents in Economics Access Service (IDEAS) for August 2008. It is observed that economists of some countries participate more vigorously in academic and professional activities. The level of development (as measured by per capita income and literacy rate) of a country determines the academic and professional participation of economists. The extent of participation also depends on infrastructural facilities, prevailing academic environment and involvement of the academics in research and publication. Of late, after the implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission Report of the Government, The Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India, is planning to introduce publication-based academic evaluation of teachers for promotion, etc. If the scheme of evaluation is formulated and implemented properly, it may have some positive impacts on the publication-based academic involvement of university and college teachers.

Even a casual overview of rankings of economics departments and economists conducted by Internet Documents in Economics Access Service (IDEAS) would reveal that economists of some countries participate more vigorously (than those of some other countries) in academic and professional activities. For example, a small country like Switzerland with 7.5 million population showed the participation of 75 institutions and over 300 economists, while a much larger country like India with a total population of over 1,100 million (having over 300 university departments of economics and a large number of colleges having economics departments) exhibited the participation of only 65 institutions and 170 economists. Assuming that economists (working in various teaching and research institutions) all over the world are engaged in academic and professional activities, which to a great extent, is reflected in their publications, it is a natural question to ask as to why there is so much of variation among different countries regarding the relationship between the total number of economists and the total number of participating economists. This is the query that has motivated the present work.

The IDEAS publishes every month the rankings of economists (and departments of economics including research institutions working in the related areas) in different countries. These rankings are based on a large number of measures (31 in number), including publication (number of pages) in journals, citations, impact factor, viewing of abstracts and download of papers, etc. (Zimmermann, 2007). A list of top 20% institutions and authors is presented for a number of countries. In this study, we have used the data published by the IDEAS (Research Papers in Economics, RePEc) for August 2008.

A cursory view of the data (Table 1a) suggests that developed countries show larger participation of economists in publishing. It is also well-known that in several developed countries, the `publish or perish' policy is prevalent. This policy motivates economists to conduct research, writing and publishing, although sometimes at the cost of lessened efforts to teaching (Tylor et al., 2006). This is effectively not so in the less developed countries where professionalism (Feldman, 2006) is yet to come and hence teaching is the main job of the academic economist. Hence, our first hypothesis is that the level of economic development of a country determines the participation of economists in academic (and professional) activities leading to publication in journals, including e-publication of working papers.

Managerial Economics Journal, Internet Documents in Economics Access Service, IDEAS, Economic Development, Human Resource Development, Economic Policies, Research Programs, Socioeconomic Dynamics, Regression Models, Internet Connections, Economic Departments.