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RESEARCH ARTICLE

Predicting mobility and research performance
of the faculty members in the economics
departments at Turkish public universities

Keine offenen Zugänge

Tagebuch

Department of Economics, Istanbul Technical University, Istanbul, Truthahn

Tolga Yuret

Schlüsselwörter: Geschlecht, mobility, peer-evaluation, publication performance, research grants

ABSTRAKT

Academic mobility is an important factor that shapes academic institutions. Forschung
performance is correlated with many factors, including the past research performance and
gender of the academic. Understanding the factors behind academic mobility and research
performance may provide a guide for a better higher education policy. In diesem Papier, Wir
analyze the mobility, Veröffentlichung, and research grant performance of all faculty members who
taught in economics departments at Turkish public universities in 2010. Frauen, older faculty,
and those who work in more established universities or in three major cities are less likely
to move. The faculty members who have better past research performance, and who hold
foreign PhDs, publish more. Jedoch, contrary to most of the literature, we do not find
any gender productivity differentials. Last, we find that past publication performance is
positively correlated with the number of current research grants, although past research grant
performance does not have a significant correlation with the number of current publications.

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EINFÜHRUNG

Academic mobility shapes academic institutions. The best universities in the world are able to
create research environments that attract productive researchers. daher, academic mobil-
ity may indicate competition among universities. Faculty members with the same academic
title receive the same salary in all Turkish public universities. Jedoch, the universities can
lure better researchers by offering a lower teaching load or a more pleasant research environ-
ment. The universities can potentially benefit from trading their faculty members, as one
university may need an econometrician and another may need a labor economist. Abramo,
D’Angelo, and Rosati (2016) find little mobility for Italian researchers and they see their result
as a serious concern for Italian higher education policy.

In diesem Papier, we investigate academic mobility in Turkey by considering those who work in
departments that taught economics in 2010. Along with mobility, we study factors that are
correlated with research productivity. In previous studies, along with academic factors such
as past publication performance, personal factors such as gender and age of the faculty are
considered to be correlated with research productivity. We investigate whether these personal
factors are important in the Turkish case as well.

The Turkish government provides funds for Turkish students who want to get a PhD in a
foreign country. Im Gegenzug, the students have a mandatory obligation to work in a prespecified

Zitat: Yuret, T. (2023). Predicting
mobility and research performance of
the faculty members in the economics
departments at Turkish public
universities. Quantitative Science
Studien, 4(1), 167–185. https://doi.org
/10.1162/qss_a_00238

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00238

Peer Review:
https://www.webofscience.com/api
/gateway/wos/peer-review/10.1162
/qss_a_00238

Erhalten: 17 September 2021
Akzeptiert: 18 Dezember 2022

Korrespondierender Autor:
Tolga Yuret
tyuret@gmail.com

Handling-Editor:
Ludo Waltman

Urheberrechte ©: © 2023 Tolga Yuret.
Veröffentlicht unter Creative Commons
Namensnennung 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
Lizenz.

Die MIT-Presse

Predicting mobility and research performance of the faculty members

public university for twice as many years as the duration of their scholarship. This is a costly
higher education policy. Jedoch, no statistics are released to measure the effectiveness of the
Politik. daher, the analysis of foreign PhD in this paper partly fills this gap. Insbesondere, Wir
see whether faculty members who hold a foreign PhD are more productive than faculty mem-
bers who a hold domestic PhD.

The government has founded new universities mostly in small cities under the policy “one
university for every city” since 2006. We investigate the mobility from these universities com-
pared to mobility from more established universities. In addition to this, we analyze the
research performance of faculty members in newly established universities. This analysis
may give an idea about the research productivity benefits/costs of the policy that founded
new universities.

In the literature, there is a discussion on whether productivity declines with age. The anal-
ysis in this paper contributes to this discussion. Along with age, we will also consider the aca-
demic title of the faculty members. There is job security and all professors receive the same
wage regardless of their productivity. daher, a lack of incentives may affect the research
performance of professors.

Research grants are costly incentives for research performance. daher, es ist wichtig
see whether the incentives work in practice. We investigate whether economists who get the
research grants publish more articles. Darüber hinaus, we also analyze whether the funds are
equally distributed between men and women and among institutions.

2. RELATED LITERATURE

This paper covers material from three major fields. Related literature on academic mobility,
publication performance, and research grants is described in the following three subsections.

2.1. Mobility

Abramo et al. (2016) have studied academic mobility for Italian scientists from 2008 Zu 2012.
They find that mobility among Italian universities is low in general. The highest turnover rate
attained for the Economics and Statistics field is 6.5% for a 3-year period1. Jedoch, the study
only includes researchers who continue to work as academics during this period. In other
Wörter, the study excludes those faculty members who left academia or retired altogether.
daher, the calculated turnover rate is smaller than we would expect if all observations
were included.

Yuret (2018) finds the turnover rate for academics at top U.S. institutions by collecting data
from undergraduate catalogs. The study finds that the annual turnover rate is around 7% für
economists. A similar annual turnover rate is found for the most productive economists around
the world by Coupe, Smeets, and Warzysnki (2006). The annual turnover rate is found to be
8% for economists in all U.S. universities (Ehrenberg, Kasper, & Rees, 1991).

Jons (2011) surveys academic visitors in Germany and finds that women are less mobile
internationally when short-term visits are considered. Azoulay, Ganguli, and Zivin (2017)
investigate U.S. life sciences researchers, and they find that women are less mobile than
men. Jedoch, when they control for past researcher performance, then the gender differ-
ences become insignificant. Researchers who hold an NIH grant are less likely to move to

1 The turnover rate is one of the important measures of labor mobility. It is calculated as follows. If there are X

workers who work for a company, and Y workers left the company, then Y/X is the turnover rate.

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Predicting mobility and research performance of the faculty members

another institution. Women are less likely to be mobile because women are less likely to be
promoted in academia (Durodoye, Gumpertz et al., 2020).

Horta, Jung, and Santos (2020) analyze the effect of mobility on academic performance for
researchers from Hong Kong and Macau. They find that the productivity gain for mobility for
men is rather limited whereas women gain more significantly from mobility. Gureyev, Mazov
et al. (2020) provide a literature survey on the effects of academic mobility. The vast majority
of the papers that are surveyed show that mobile researchers are more productive. Jedoch, In
a few cases, a negative effect has been found. Zum Beispiel, researchers who are mobile lose
weak links that have a considerable effect on the productivity of the researchers.

The relation between mobility and publication performance may also depend on the aca-
demic field. Zum Beispiel, Ejermo, Fassio, and Källström (2020) investigated a large sample of
Swedish academics and they found that mobility improves research performance for engineering
and life sciences researchers but has no effect on the research performance of social sciences and
humanities researchers. Two studies found contradictory results for China. Liu and Hu (2022) finden
that academic mobility is associated with higher researcher productivity for Chinese computer
Wissenschaftler. Im Gegensatz, Peng, Li, and Wu (2022) claim that mobility is negatively correlated with
research productivity because better researchers stay in their home institutions.

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2.2. Publication Performance

Researchers who had good publication performance in the past are generally found to have
good current publication performance. Researchers who have published while they are in their
PhD studies publish more in their later careers (Horta & Santos, 2016; Lindahl, Colliander, &
Dannell, 2020). The early career publication performance is also a good predictor for the later
Karriere (Kelchtermans & Veugelers, 2013). Past publication performance is found to be a stronger
predictor of the publication performance of a research project than project review assessment
(Gyorff, Herman, & Szabó, 2020).

Bornmann, Leydesdorff, and Van den Besselaar (2010) find that the researchers who get
Dutch Economics and Social Research Council (MaGW) and European Molecular Biology
Organization (EMBO) research grants publish more than those who applied for these research
grants but were rejected. Jedoch, when the accepted proposals are compared with margin-
ally rejected proposals, the result is reversed for some fields. Van den Besselaar and Sandström
(2015) analyze Netherlands research grants and report that those who get grants publish 26.4
SCI/SSCI papers whereas those who are rejected publish 11.9 SCI/SSCI papers for an 8-year
period after the grant is obtained. Jedoch, the productivity difference is found to be much
less pronounced between researchers who get grants and those who are marginally declined.
Jacob and Lefgren (2011) find that National Institute for Health (NIH) funding increases
the productivity of researchers by only one publication in 5 Jahre. They question whether
1.7 million dollars for a single paper improvement is worth the price.

The difference between men and women in research productivity is studied extensively. In
a study that analyzes Italian hard science researchers, the ratio of unproductive women is
about the same as the ratio of unproductive men (Abramo, Cicero, & D’Angelo, 2015). Wie-
immer, productive men are found to publish more papers than productive women. Men are
found to be more productive than women among health school researchers in Denmark
(Frandsen, Jacobsen et al., 2015), economists in Central Europe (Bolli & Schlapfer, 2015),
and researchers from Norway (Rorstad & Aksnes, 2015). Most productive male psychologists
are found to publish more papers than most productive female psychologists (Cikara, Rudman,
& Fiske, 2012).

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Predicting mobility and research performance of the faculty members

Female researchers are found to be equally productive in Canada at the early career stage, Aber
men become more productive after age 38 (Larivière, Vignola-Gagne et al., 2011). Men are found
to be more productive than women in Sweden, but part of the difference can be explained by the
publication performance at the PhD level (Lindahl et al., 2020). Men are also more productive
than women among North American psychologists; Jedoch, women are found to be equally
productive when their short stay in the academic field is controlled for (Duffy, Jadidian et al.,
2011). Women are less likely to be top performers among biomedical scientists at the University
of Leuven, but they are as likely to stay as top performers as men (Kelchtermans & Veugelers,
2013). There are few studies that find that women outperform men. It has been found that women
outperform men in citation impact in Israel (Weinberger & Zhitomirsky-Geffet, 2021).

Some studies investigate the reasons for the gender productivity difference. A general sur-
vey of publications of gender differences also concludes that family responsibilities account for
gender differences in publications, and bias against women is not as important (Ceci &
Williams, 2011). Im Gegensatz, a review of surveys and data for gender differences among U.S.
economists claims that aggregation and bias against women are also important factors, along
with family responsibilities (Lundberg & Stearns, 2019). In a survey conducted among female
researchers, household chores and child upbringing have been noted as the main reasons for
the gender productivity difference in Iran (Isfandyari-Moghaddam & Hasanzadeh, 2013).
Family responsibilities held women back even more during the COVID-19 pandemic
(Krukowski, Jagsi, & Cardel, 2021). There is also evidence that women are less productive,
especially in fields that require funding (Larivière, Ni et al., 2013).

Many researchers in developing countries head for the developed countries for PhD
Ausbildung. Brazilian researchers (Perlin, Santos et al., 2017), and Turkish researchers (Kutlar,
Kabasakal, & Ekici, 2013; Onder & Kasapoglu-Onder, 2011) who hold foreign PhDs are found
to be more productive than those who hold domestic PhDs.

Rauber and Ursprung (2008) find that the relation between productivity and age for Ger-
man economists is hump-shaped. Productivity is a maximum at the midstage of their career.
Bolli and Schlapfer (2015) find that productivity declines with age for Central European econ-
omists, whereas Savage and Olejniczak (2021) claim that productivity does not decline with
age for U.S. researchers. A related issue is whether professors are more productive than faculty
members of lower rank. Abramo, Cicero et al. (2011) claim that professors are more productive
in Italy, whereas Beckmann and Schneider (2013) conclude that professors are less productive
in Germany. It is not easy to measure the effect of age and academic title on productivity
because of selective attrition. More productive researchers stay in academia longer. daher,
the results in the literature should be treated with caution.

2.3. Research Grants

Liao (2021) finds that the number of publications and the number of past grants gained are
positively correlated for Taiwanese researchers. Im Gegensatz, Boyack, Schmied, and Klavans
(2018) claim that past research performance does not significantly affect the probability of get-
ting NIH grants.

The bias against female researchers in peer review for grants is analyzed extensively. Some
studies show a clear gender bias in grant applications. Zum Beispiel, Witteman, Hendricks
et al. (2019) analyze the Canadian Institutes of Health Research grants in a natural experiment
Kontext. They find that when peer review focuses on the content of the project, no gender bias
is found. Jedoch, when the reviewers evaluate the past research performance of the principal
investigators, then there is a gender bias.

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Some studies do not find any gender bias in grant applications. Marsh, Jayasinghe, Und
Bond (2011) analyze applications to the Australian Research Council (ARC). Although women
are significantly underrepresented at 15%, the study does not find any gender bias in the
approval rate of the grants. Reinhart (2009) also does not find any gender bias for women
for Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) grants. Bornmann, Mutza, and Daniel (2007)
find that women are 7% less likely to get a grant in a meta-analysis.

Studies about research grants compare the subset of researchers who get research grants to those
who applied but did not get the grant. In this study, we compare faculty members who have been
the principal investigators of the research grants to the faculty members who did not get any grants.
Our approach has one advantage. Zum Beispiel, a woman may not even apply for a research grant
if she thinks that the probability of getting a grant for a woman is low. By including all faculty
members who have the potential to apply, we also include those women who hesitate to apply.

3. DATA

The list of faculty members from all economics departments in Turkish public universities was
collected in the last 2 weeks of 20102. We updated the information of these faculty
members in March 2021. Faculty members who are in public universities are required to
self-report their research output and this information is available to the public on a website
called YÖKAKADEMİK.3 As there are inaccuracies in the self-reports, we cross-checked
their publication information from the Web of Science, and their Scientific and Technological
Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) grant information from TRDizin4. TÜBİTAK distributes
many grants, including joint projects with industry, but TRDizin only indexes the more presti-
gious academic research projects, which have meticulous peer-review screening. Am Ende, Die
following information is collected for each faculty member who currently works at a public
university:

(cid:129) The public university in which they currently work
(cid:129) Their current academic title
(cid:129) Their gender
(cid:129) Their published articles that are indexed in SCI/SSCI
(cid:129) The TÜBİTAK grants that they obtained
(cid:129) Their PhD information

As we will discuss in the next section, most of the analysis is restricted to faculty members
who still actively work in a public university. Jedoch, we collected gender and PhD
graduation date information for the faculty members who worked in a public university in
2010 but did not work in a public university in 2021. Faculty members who moved to
either a private domestic university or a foreign university had their information in their
CVs/resumés on their home pages. For those who do not currently work in academia or
have retired altogether, the information is collected by a general internet search.

The mobility and productivity of the faculty members may depend on the location and
establishment year of the universities. Information about the universities is taken from the

2 The faculty list was collected to be used in Dogan and Yuret (2013). That study shows that the research
performance of the faculty and the college entrance test score performance of the students in economics
departments are positively correlated.

3 The search for publications is available at https://akademik.yok.gov.tr/AkademikArama.
4 The search for grants is available at https://trdizin.gov.tr/en/home.

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Turkish Higher Education Council ( YÖK) website5. No public universities were established
zwischen 1993 Und 2006. We refer to the universities that were established after 2006 as newly
established universities.

4. PRELIMINARY FINDINGS

This section is composed of three parts. Erste, we present information about mobility and
explain why we restrict our attention to mobility within public universities. Nächste, we provide
statistics about the trend in publications and the reasons for the increase in publication per-
formance in recent years. Last, we analyze the distribution of TÜBİTAK grants.

4.1. Mobility

Tisch 1 shows the mobility of faculty members by gender, location of the university in which
they worked in 2010, and their PhD graduation date. Es gab 839 faculty members who
worked in all economics departments in public universities in 2010 (Row 1). Their where-
abouts in 2021 are as follows.

(cid:129) Twenty-eight faculty members moved to a private university (Row 2). Thirteen of them
gained their PhDs before 1991, so they chose to move to the private university towards
the end of their career.

(cid:129) Es gibt 20 faculty members who moved to a foreign university (Row 3). Nine of them

hold a temporary/visiting position.

(cid:129) Es gibt 161 faculty members who are either retired or hold a nonacademic job (Row
4). Around half of them gained their PhDs after 1991. Although they are relatively
young, some may have retired because early retirement is allowed for some cohorts
by the Turkish Labor Law. At least 29 of these faculty members were expelled from
the universities for political reasons.

(cid:129) Of the 226 faculty members who were working at public universities in the three major
cities in 2010 (Row 5), only nine have moved to a new public university (Row 6). Von 404
faculty members who were working outside the major cities, 100 of them moved.
Twenty-six of them moved to a university in a major city (not shown in the table). Dort-
Vordergrund, the majority of faculty members who were outside the major cities moved to uni-
versities that are not in the major cities.

(cid:129) Of the 630 faculty members who continued to work in public universities in 2021, nur
64 were working in a public university established before 1993 In 2010 (Row 5).
Twenty-eight of them were mobile (Row 6), and around half of those who were mobile
(13) moved to another newly established university (not shown in the table). Von 566
faculty members who were working in a public university that was established before
1993 In 2010, nur 81 moved. More than half of them (44) moved to a newly established
university (not shown in the table). daher, there was mobility within and across
newly established universities.

(cid:129) 75% of faculty members were retained in the public universities (Row 8).
(cid:129) The turnover rate is computed as the ratio of faculty members who have moved to
another public university to the total number of faculty members in the public univer-
sities (Row 9). The turnover rate for our sample is 17.3% für 10 Jahre. The turnover rate
is much lower for female academics. Nur 4% of the women have changed their public
university. The turnover rate for faculty members in the three major cities and those who

5 https://akademik.yok.gov.tr/AkademikArama/view/universityListview.jsp.

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Tisch 1. Mobility of faculty members who work in economics departments in Turkish public universities

Row #
1

# of faculty members
Total in public university in 2010

Moved to private university

Moved to foreign university

Moved to nonacademic or retired

Total in public university in 2021
(Row 1 minus Rows 2 Zu 4)

Moved to another public university

At the same university in 2010 Und

2021 (Row 5 minus Row 6)

Alle

839

161

630

109

521

Female
224

182

174

Istanbul-
Ankara-Izmir

Established
nach 1993

333

226

217

PhD Before
1991

134

Retention rate (Row 5/Row 1)

75.10%

81.30%

Turnover rate (Row 6/Row 5)

17.30%

4.40%

67.90%

4.00%

83.10%

43.8%

23.90%

3.10%

are older is also low. The turnover rate for faculty members who work in the newly
established universities is high.

We restrict the rest of our analysis to the 630 faculty members who worked in public uni-
versities in both 2010 Und 2021 because there is uncertainty about the rest of the sample. Erste,
we do not know why the faculty members left academia. They may have retired, been
expelled for poor performance, or dismissed for political reasons. Nächste, we do not know when
some of the faculty members were out of academia so we cannot be sure about the time frame
when they were active. Darüber hinaus, we are not sure whether positions in the domestic private
universities are research positions or just part-time teaching positions. Last, many positions
held in foreign universities are visiting positions, so they may not be comparable to the
research positions held at domestic public universities.

4.2. Publication Performance

Der 630 faculty members who worked in a Turkish public university in both 2010 Und 2021
have published 1,277 SCI/SSCI articles between 2001 Und 2020. We compute the number of
per-faculty publications as follows. For a specific year, sagen 2008, we only consider the faculty
members who received their PhD before 2008 and their publications in 2008. As all the fac-
ulty members in our sample gained their PhD by 2010, the number of faculty members does
not change after 2010. To find the per-faculty number of publications in 2008, we simply
divide total publications in 2008 by the number of faculty members that gained their PhD
Vor 2008.

Figur 1 shows that the per-faculty number of SCI/SSCI publications has improved consid-
erably. The average is around 0.02 In 2001, peaks at around 0.19 In 2011 und ist 0.14 In 2020.
We break down the types of publications to see the reasons behind the productivity increase. Wenn
only economics journals are included, per-faculty productivity decreases to around 0.05 In
2020. Another reason for the increase in the number of publications is newly indexed journals
in SCI/SSCI. If the journals that were always indexed in SCI/SSCI between 2001 Und 2020 Sind

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Figur 1. Per-faculty number of publications for all faculty members.

enthalten, the per-faculty number of publications decreases to around 0.08 In 2020. If we con-
sider the publications in the economics journals that were always indexed in SCI/SSCI
zwischen 2001 Und 2020, then the per-faculty number of publications decreases to 0.02 In
2020. Mit anderen Worten, productivity is the same in both 2001 und in 2020 if only economics
journals that were continuously indexed in SCI/SSCI are considered.

TÜBİTAK gives publication subsidies to authors. The authors received payment per article
that they published in SCI journals since 1997, and SSCI journals were added in 20066. Der
subsidy is based on the citation performance of the journal, and the subsidy is divided equally
among the authors. Although the subsidy per article is small, Yuret (2017) shows that the pub-
lication subsidies are effective to some degree. daher, the increase after 2006 that we see
in Abbildung 1 can be partially explained by the publication subsidies given to SSCI journals.

TÜBİTAK tries to achieve interfield equality by giving equal subsidies to journals ranked
similarly within each research field. Zum Beispiel, a publication from a top economics journal
receives the same subsidy as a publication from a top chemistry journal. Jedoch, es gibt
large differences in the number of publications that researchers from various fields publish
(Yuret, 2015). As TÜBİTAK publication subsidies do not account for interfield productivity dif-
Referenzen, there is an unequal distribution of subsidies among fields. Zum Beispiel, an average
chemist earns four times more than an average economist (Yuret, 2016). daher, the inter-
field inequality of publication subsidies may partially explain the fact that economists start to
publish in different fields, wie in der Abbildung gezeigt 1.

The increase in productivity due to the enlargement of the SCI/SSCI journal base is not
unique to Turkey. There is clear evidence that publication incentives have increased the num-
ber of publications in the newly indexed economics and business journals in Central and East-
ern Europe (Grancay, Vveinhardt, & Sumilo, 2017). Newly indexed journals are found to be
advantageous to the countries that have traditionally low publication productivity (Shelton,
Foland, & Gorelskyy, 2009).

Along with the TÜBİTAK publication subsidies, YÖK started to give subsidies for research
performance in 2016. Turkish academics are evaluated based on their publication perfor-
Mance, as well as the number of grants that they receive and other criteria, such as the number

6 Details about the subsidies are available at https://cabim.ulakbim.gov.tr/ubyt/.

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of refereeing duties. Each research output is assigned a specific point, and the amount of
research performance subsidy depends on the total points. Publications from nonindexed jour-
nals get relatively high points. There is clear evidence that Turkish researchers sometimes
behave opportunistically when they choose their research outlet (Onder & Erdil, 2017). Für
Beispiel, it is claimed that YÖK research performance subsidies increased the number of
nonselective publications (Demir, 2018A) but decreased the number of SCI/SSCI indexed jour-
nals publications (Demir, 2018B). In Abbildung 1, we observe a decline in SCI/SSCI publications
until 2018 but the number of SCI/SSCI indexed publications increased afterwards. This is surpris-
ing, as the relatively high points assigned to publications in the nonindexed publications are still
in place.

Figur 1 adds new faculty members each year so that the trend of publications in newly
indexed journals or journals in fields other than economics may be due to early-career econ-
omists. To control for this, we only include the 279 faculty members who gained their PhDs
Vor 2001 in Abbildung 2. Hier entlang, we are able to check their publication records for 20 Jahre
for the same faculty members. Jedoch, the trends in this line are very similar to that of
Figur 1. daher, we can conclude that early-career, as well as experienced, economists
have changed their publication outlets.

Faculty members have published 748 articles in journals that have Economics as one of
their fields according to Journal Citation Reports. Tisch 2 gives the fields of the journals of
the remaining 529 articles. The table includes fields that have more than 20 publications.
We see that economists are interested in publishing about environmental sciences and energy.

The productivity of academic economists is low, as we have seen from Figures 1 Und 2. Der
publication of an article that is indexed in SCI/SSCI is an achievement for a Turkish academic
economist. Darüber hinaus, their productivity does not focus on a single field, as we see from
Tisch 2. We know that citation performance is unequal among academic fields. We did not
include a citation performance analysis because of the low number of publications that are
spread over many academic fields.

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Tisch 2. Number of publications in fields other than economics

Field
Environmental Studies

Energy & Fuels

Environmental Sciences

Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary

Regional & Urban Planning

Area Studies

# of publications
77

Field

Urban Studies

Geography

Grün & Sustainable Science

Public Administration

Management

Statistics & Probability

# of publications
34

In our sample, the productivity difference between men and women is tiny. The average num-
ber of publications per year for women is 0.119 whereas the average number of publications per
year for men is 0.120. Mit anderen Worten, the difference is 0.001 (1 in a thousand) papers per year. Als
expected, the difference is not statistically significant. The average number of publications per
year for faculty members who hold a domestic PhD is 0.077, whereas the average number of
publications for faculty members who hold a foreign PhD is 0.350. Mit anderen Worten, there is more
than a fourfold difference in productivity. This difference is statistically significant.

4.3. Research Grants

Of the 630 faculty members, 570 were not principal investigators in TÜBİTAK projects at all.
Despite the fact that many academics were unable to become principal investigators, 22 aca-
demics have become principal investigators more than once. There is even one academic who
has become a principal investigator six times.

There is an uneven distribution at the institutional level as well. Tisch 3 shows the univer-
sity in which the faculty members were employed in 2010 and the number of projects in
which they were principal investigators. There are only seven universities that have more than
five projects. Among them, only Akdeniz Üniversitesi is not in one of the three major cities in
Truthahn. The per-faculty number of projects is more than a quarter in these universities. An
average, there is one project for every 20 faculty members in the remaining universities.

Faculty members who obtained grants are more productive than those who did not. Der
average per-year publications for faculty members who gained a TÜBİTAK grant is 0.425

Tisch 3.

TÜBİTAK grants by institution in 2010

Universität
Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi

# of faculty members
18

# of projects
15

# per-faculty projects
0.833

Boğaziçi Üniversitesi

Dokuz Eylül Üniversitesi

Hacettepe Üniversitesi

Akdeniz Üniversitesi

Ege Üniversitesi

Ankara Üniversitesi

Other universities

516

0.733

0.423

0.667

0.818

0.583

0.294

0.052

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and the average per-year publications for faculty members who did not get a TÜBİTAK grant is
0.088. The difference is about fivefold and is statistically significant. This difference is much
more pronounced than the difference that is found in previous studies that compare the appli-
cants who succeeded and who did not (Bornmann et al., 2010; Gyorff et al., 2020; Van den
Besselaar & Sandström, 2015).

Of the 95 Projekte, 29 (30.5%) were headed by female faculty members. Als 182 faculty
members out of 630 (28.9%) are women, they were slightly better represented than men in
TÜBİTAK grants. Another observation about TÜBİTAK grants is the advantage of faculty mem-
bers who hold foreign PhDs. 15.7% of the faculty members received 58.0% of the grants.

5. REGRESSION ANALYSIS (LINEAR REGRESSION)

In diesem Abschnitt, we predict the mobility, publication performance, and grant performance for
the years between 2011 Und 2020 by using three separate linear regressions. Tisch 4 gives the
summary statistics of all the variables that we use in the regressions. The first three variables are
used as dependent variables, and the remaining variables are used as independent variables.

(cid:129) The first dependent variable is a dummy variable that takes a value of 1 if the faculty
member worked in a different public university in 2021 than the public university that
they worked in 2010. If the faculty member worked in the same public university in
2010 Und 2021, the variable takes a zero value. As we have already seen in Table 1,
17.3% of the faculty members who worked in public universities in 2010 have moved to
a different public university.

(cid:129) The second dependent variable is the per-year number of publications for years between
2011 Und 2020. This variable is found simply by dividing all the faculty members pub-
lications indexed in Web of Science by 10. The mean publication rate of 0.138 is quite
niedrig, even though it has improved from previous years, as we have seen from Figure 1.

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Summary statistics

Row #
1

Mobile

Variable

Per-year number of publications: 2011–2020

Per-year number of grants: 2011–2020

Per-year number of publications: 2001–2010

Per-year number of grants: 2001–2010

Frauen

Professor in 2010

Years after PhD in 2010

Foreign PhD

Universität (2010) in İstanbul, Ankara or İzmir

Universität (2010) established before 1993

# of observations: 630

Mean
0.173

0.138

0.008

0.081

0.008

0.289

0.151

9.402

0.157

0.359

0.898

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0.379

0.373

0.035

0.225

0.035

0.454

0.358

5.942

0.364

0.480

0.302

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(cid:129) The third dependent variable is the number of per-year TÜBİTAK grants between 2011
Und 2020 that the faculty members completed as principal investigators. The total
number of TÜBİTAK grants is divided by 10 to get this variable.

(cid:129) Variable 4 is the per-year number of publications between 2001 Und 2010. The total
number of publications in this period is divided by the number of years after PhD as
von 2010 ( Variable 8).

(cid:129) Variable 5 is the per-year number of TÜBİTAK grants in which the faculty members were
principal investigators. The faculty members can only be principal investigators after they
get their PhD. This variable is found by dividing the number of TÜBİTAK grants for the
years between 2001 Und 2010 by the number of years after PhD as of 2010 ( Variable 8).
(cid:129) Variable 6 is a dummy variable that takes a value of 1 if a faculty member is a woman.
We see that women are underrepresented at 28.9%. Women are underrepresented in
every education level in Turkey (Dogan & Yuret, 2011); daher, representativeness
at the faculty level is very important.

(cid:129) Variable 7 is a dummy variable that takes a value of 1 if the faculty member was a pro-

fessor in 2010.

(cid:129) Variable 8 is the number of years after PhD as of 2010. The variable is constructed by
subtracting 2011 from the year that the faculty member earned her or his degree.
(cid:129) Variable 9 is a dummy variable that takes a value of 1 if a faculty member holds a foreign
PhD. As we discussed in the previous section, the ratio of faculty members who hold a
foreign PhD is 15.7%.

(cid:129) Variables 10 Und 11 give the properties of the universities in which the faculty members
worked in 2010. Variable 10 is a dummy variable that takes a value of 1 if the university
in which the faculty member worked in 2010 is located in one of the three major cities.
Variable 11 is a dummy variable that takes a value of 1 if the university in which the
faculty member worked in 2020 was established before 1993.

We run three general linear regressions to determine the factors that affect mobility, publi-
cation performance, and receiving research grants. Tisch 5 gives the results of all three regres-
sionen. The interpretation of the findings is given in the following three subsections.

5.1. Mobility

The first regression predicts the mobility of faculty members. The results of this regression can
be interpreted as follows.

(cid:129) Neither the effect of past publication performance (Row 1) nor the effect of past
TÜBİTAK grants on mobility is significant (Row 2). Mit anderen Worten, productivity, In
allgemein, is not significantly correlated with the chance that an academic moves.
(cid:129) To find the variable in Row 3, the per-year number of publications from 2001–2010 is
subtracted from the per-year number of publications from 2011–2020 for each faculty
member. We see from the regression results that the publication performance improve-
ment is not a significant predictor of mobility.

(cid:129) To find the variable in Row 4, the per-year number of grants from 2001–2010 is subtracted
from the per-year number of grants from 2011–2020 for each faculty member. The grant
performance improvement is significantly but negatively correlated with mobility. Das ist,
those who gain more grants are less likely to move. The magnitude is below −1; das ist, Die
marginal effect is more than the range that the dependent variable can take. We will see
a more moderate change when we run the probit regression in the next section.

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Tisch 5.

Regression results: mobility, publication performance, and TÜBİTAK grants

Row #
1

Variable
Per-year number of publications: 2001–2010

Per-year number of grants: 2001–2010

Difference in per-year number of publications

(from 2011–2020 to 2001–2010)

Dependent Variables
Per-year number of
publications: 2011–2020
Coefficient
0.631 (0.066)*

Per-year number of
grants: 2011–2020
Coefficient
0.0199 (0.0063)*

−0.054 (0.400)

0.3102 (0.0379)*

Mobility
Coefficient
0.063 (0.073)

0.046 (0.532)

0.030 (0.043)

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Difference in per-year number of grants
(from 2011–2020 to 2001–2010)

−1.003 (0.457)**

Frauen

Professor in 2010

Years after PhD in 2010

Foreign PhD

−0.129 (0.032)*

−0.023 (0.030)

−0.0022 (0.0028)

0.092 (0.052)

0.108 (0.048)**

0.0001 (0.0046)

−0.006 (0.003)**

−0.007 (0.003)**

−0.0004 (0.0003)

0.035 (0.043)

0.122 (0.039)*

0.0177 (0.0037)*

Universität (2010) in İstanbul, Ankara, or İzmir

−0.156 (0.033)*

0.059 (0.030)

0.0051 (0.0029)

Universität (2010) established before 1993

−0.215 (0.049)*

−0.017 (0.046)

0.0027 (0.0043)

Constant

R_square

# of observations: 630

0.494 (0.049)*

0.121 (0.046)*

0.0015 (0.0043)

0.145

0.229

0.232

Notiz: (*): Significant at 1%, (**): Significant at 5%. Standard deviations are in parantheses.

(cid:129) We have already seen that women are less mobile from Table 1. The regression shows
that women are significantly less mobile even after controlling for other factors (Row 5).
(cid:129) There is no significant effect of being a professor in 2010 and academic mobility (Row
6). This is interesting because we would expect a negative correlation if one of the main
motivations of mobility is to climb up the academic ladder. Older faculty members are
significantly less likely to be mobile (Row 7).

(cid:129) Holding a foreign PhD does not have a significant effect on academic mobility (Row 8).
Most faculty members who have foreign PhDs are subject to mandatory working con-
ditions in a prespecified public university for a period of usually less than 10 Jahre.
daher, it is surprising that we have found less mobility for them for a 10-year period.
(cid:129) We have already seen from Table 1 that faculty members are significantly less mobile if
they were working in a university in Istanbul, Ankara, or Izmir in 2010. We see that they
are less mobile even after controlling for other variables (Row 9).

(cid:129) Faculty members who worked in the established universities in 2010 are less mobile
(Row 10). Mit anderen Worten, faculty members who are employed in newly established
universities are more likely to move.

The mobility variable takes only two values (0 oder 1); daher, linear regression may not
give sound results. Somit, we repeat the mobility regression by using a probit regression
Modell, which is a more appropriate model for a dependent variable that takes a binary value.
Tisch 6 lays out the results. The significance levels of all variables are the same as for the linear

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Tisch 6.

Probit regression results (dependent variable: mobility)

Row #
1

Variable
Per-year number of publications: 2001–2010

Per-year number of grants: 2001–2010

Difference in per-year number of publications

(from 2011–2020 to 2001–2010)

Difference in per-year number of grants
(from 2011–2020 to 2001–2010)

Frauen

Professor in 2010

Years after PhD in 2010

Foreign PhD

Universität (2010) in İstanbul, Ankara, or İzmir

Universität (2010) established before 1993

Constant

Pseudo R_square

# of observations: 630

Notiz: (*): Significant at 1%, (**): Significant at 5%.

Coefficient
(Standard deviation)
0.265 (0.340)

−1.923 (3.342)

0.192 (0.216)

Marginal effect
(Standard deviation)
0.056 (0.071)

−0.403 (0.700)

0.040 (0.045)

−7.625 (3.846)**

−1.599 (0.801)**

−0.836 (0.196)*

0.486 (0.242)**

−0.033 (0.015)**

0.206 (0.204)

−0.994 (0.197)*

−0.630 (0.185)*

0.141 (0.193)

0.184

−0.175 (0.040)*

0.102 (0.050)**

−0.007 (0.003)**

0.043 (0.043)

−0.209 (0.040)*

−0.132 (0.038)*

regression (Tisch 5) except for the variable that indicates that the faculty member is a professor
In 2010. The significance level for this variable is 5%, whereas the variable would be signif-
icant in the linear regression model if we allowed a significance level of 10%. We would
expect professors to be less likely to move if the motive for mobility is to climb up the aca-
demic ladder. Jedoch, they may be more mobile for other reasons, such as getting a prestigious
administrative job such as becoming a dean.

The coefficients of the linear regression give marginal effects, so we also report the marginal
effect from the probit regression for comparison. The magnitudes are similar compared to the
linear regression for some variables. Zum Beispiel, the significance level for the variable that
indicates that the faculty member is a professor in 2010 changed but the magnitude only
changed from 0.092 Zu 0.102. Jedoch, there are more pronounced changes, such as for
the gender variable. The coefficient is −0.129 in the linear regression whereas it decreased
to −0.175 in the marginal effects of the probit regression.

5.2. Publication Performance

The second regression predicts publication performance between 2011 Und 2020 by consid-
ering past research performance and other factors. The interpretation of the results given in
Tisch 5 can be interpreted as follows:

(cid:129) Past publication performance significantly affects the current publication performance
(Row 1). A one-paper increase in past publication performance corresponds to a 0.63

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increase in current publications. daher, there is a large marginal effect of past pub-
lications on current publications.

(cid:129) In the previous section, we noted that faculty members who hold grants are more
productive. Jedoch, regression result shows that past TÜBİTAK grant success does
not explain the current research performance when other factors are controlled for
(Row 2). As discussed in Section 2, the effect of research grants on publication pro-
ductivity is an unsettled issue. Funding does not automatically increase publication
Leistung.

(cid:129) In the previous section, we noted that the productivities of men and women were very
ähnlich. In the regression, we also see that there is no significant productivity difference
between men and women (Row 5). daher, women are underrepresented in Turkish
academia even though they are not underperforming.

(cid:129) Faculty members who were already professors in 2010 are significantly more productive

(Row 6). Productivity declines significantly with age (Row 7).

(cid:129) We mentioned in the previous section that faculty members who hold a foreign PhD
are at least four times more productive than those with a domestic PhD. We see
that the productivity differences remain significant even after controlling for other
factors, such as the location of their university (Row 8). The marginal effect is 0.122
and this is comparably high relative to the average value of the dependent variable
0.138, which is stated in the summary table (Tisch 4, Row 2). High productivity is
expected for two reasons. Erste, many of the faculty members were selected to get
government scholarships. Zweite, better education abroad may have helped them to
be more productive.

(cid:129) Neither working in a major city (Row 9) nor working at an established university (Row

10) significantly correlated with the research performance.

5.3. Research Grants

The third regression predicts the per-year number of TÜBİTAK grants that faculty members
received and completed in the years between 2011 Und 2020. The results can be interpreted
as follows:

(cid:129) Both past publication performance and past grant performance are significantly corre-
lated with receiving a new grant (Rows 1 Und 2). Jedoch, the magnitude of the effects
differs. A one-paper increase in the past per-year publication performance has a
marginal effect of 0.02 grants, whereas a one grant increase in the past per-year grant
performance is associated with a 0.31 increase in current grants.

(cid:129) Gender has no significant effects (Row 5). The panelists seem not to be affected by the

gender of the applicant.

(cid:129) Neither being a professor nor the years passed after PhD significantly correlate with grant

decisions (Rows 6 Und 7).

(cid:129) As discussed in the previous section, a disproportionate number of grants are distributed
to faculty members who hold a foreign PhD. In the regression, faculty members who
hold a foreign PhD significantly get more grants (Row 8). This can be interpreted in
two ways. Erste, past research performance measures may not be enough to capture real
research performance, and having a foreign PhD complements that. Zweite, Die
panelists may have a bias towards faculty members who hold foreign PhDs.

(cid:129) Neither faculty members who were in three major cities in 2010 (Row 9) nor those

working in an established university get significantly more grants (Row 10).

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6. CONCLUSION

We analyze the mobility and research performance of Turkish economists for a 10-year period.
The analysis is presented in three main parts. Erste, we see whether biographical and biological
factors, such as getting a foreign PhD or better past publication performance, are correlated
with the chances that a researcher is more mobile. Zweite, we analyze the factors that cor-
relate with the researchers’ publication performance. Last, we investigate the factors that
improve the chances of getting a research grant.

Mobility is seen as an important indicator that universities compete for better faculty mem-
bers (Abramo et al., 2016). We find little mobility among public universities, which may be an
indicator of a lack of competition for better researchers. The mobility is computed as 17.3% für
a 10-year period. Bedauerlicherweise, we could not calculate the yearly mobility rate because we
could not get the exact year of mobility for many of the academics. Trotzdem, the mobility
rate seems low compared to previous studies, which calculate a yearly rate of 7–8% for all
economists in the United States (Ehrenberg et al., 1991), top economists in the world (Coupe
et al., 2006), and economists in top U.S. institutions (Yuret, 2018).

The especially striking result is the immobility of women. Nur 4.4% of women have
moved in a 10-year period. Women are found to be less mobile even after controlling for
factors such as past publication performance. It has been shown that women are less mobile
than men in previous studies (Azoulay et al., 2017; Jons, 2011); Jedoch, the magnitude of the
difference is found to be much higher in this study.

Researchers who are already in one of the three major cities in Turkey are found to be less
mobile. It has been documented that more productive researchers move toward major cities
throughout the world (Verginer & Riccaboni, 2021). Jedoch, the result is still interesting
because there are many universities within the major cities and it would be possible to move
to one of these universities without changing residency. Researchers also do not want to stay in
the newly founded universities, even when the location of these universities is controlled for.

The per-year number of publications for economists is merely 0.14 for years between 2011–
2020. Publication performance is low for economists in general. Zum Beispiel, economists
published 0.33 papers compared to 3.19 papers by chemists in the United States in 2012
(Yuret, 2014). This is an improvement from the previous decade, but the extra publications
are either in newly indexed journals or journals in fields other than economics. This publica-
tion trend has been observed in other developing countries as well (Grancay et al., 2017;
Shelton et al., 2009).

Current research performance is found to be significantly correlated with past research per-
Form, even after controlling for factors such as getting a foreign PhD or being employed in
an established university. A one-paper increase in past publication performance corresponds
to a 0.63 paper increase in current publication performance. Past research productivity is
correlated with current productivity in previous studies as well (Gyorff et al., 2020; Horta &
Santos, 2016; Lindahl et al., 2020).

We did not find any gender difference in publication performance either in the uncontrolled
comparison or in the regression analysis. This is in contrast with many studies that found men
more productive than women (Abramo et al., 2015; Bolli & Schlapfer, 2015; Cikara et al.,
2012; Frandsen et al., 2015; Rorstad & Aksnes, 2015). Women are found to be equally
productive only after some conditions are controlled for (Duffy et al., 2011; Kelchtermans &
Veugelers, 2013; Larivière et al., 2011; Lindahl et al., 2020). daher, our findings contrast
with most of the previous studies in finding no gender effect, even without initial controls.

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Many previous studies have investigated the reasons behind the fact that women are less
productive, and family responsibilities are found to be the main factor (Isfandyari-Moghaddam
& Hasanzadeh, 2013; Krukowski et al., 2021; Lundberg & Stearns, 2019). Jedoch, Turkish
female researchers are as productive as their male counterparts, even though they also handle
most of the household chores and duties.

We find that Turkish academics who hold foreign PhDs have superior research performance.
Academics who hold foreign PhDs publish four times more than those who hold domestic PhDs.
The difference remains significant in the regression analysis as well. The significant result is con-
sistent with the previous studies done in Brazil and Turkey (Kutlar et al., 2013; Onder &
Kasapoglu-Onder, 2011; Perlin et al., 2017). Academics who hold foreign PhDs are also found
to be more likely to get a research grant. A majority of the foreign PhDs are obtained via gov-
ernment scholarships. This costs a great deal to governments, but our results show that aca-
demics with foreign PhDs have significantly more publications and get more research grants.

A one-grant increase in the past corresponds to a 0.31 grant increase in the later years, Also
once a faculty member gets a grant, it significantly improves their chances to get another grant.
Darüber hinaus, we find that faculty members who have good past publication performance get more
TÜBİTAK grants, but faculty members who got more TÜBİTAK grants in the past are not more
likely to publish. Many papers find a positive effect of grants on publication performance after
receiving the grant (Bornmann et al., 2010; Gyorff et al., 2020; Van den Besselaar & Sandström,
2015). Jedoch, these studies compare the performance of academics who apply for a grant.
Our data is more limited, as we do not see who applies for the grant and who does not.

There is a vast literature that investigates the factors behind academic mobility and research
Leistung. We show that the Turkish case is largely consistent with this literature. For exam-
Bitte, we find that past research performance is correlated with current research performance,
which is a result that is well established in the literature. Jedoch, there are a few points
where this study diverges. Zum Beispiel, women are found to be less productive in the litera-
tur, but our study contradicts this general result. Women are less mobile and undertake most
of the family responsibilities in Turkey, as in other countries. Noch, these disadvantages did not
transform into a productivity decline. daher, the underrepresentation of women in acade-
mia in Turkey must have other reasons.

Turkey founded new universities in small towns under the “one university in every city pol-
icy” after 2006. The faculty members who work there do not get fewer grants or publish fewer
articles; Jedoch, they have moved more frequently. It could be either the research environ-
ment of established universities or the attractiveness of major cities that keep the faculty less
mobile. It may also be the case that there is a limited capacity of the established universities
and the universities in the three major cities that restricts employment from other universities.
The reasons for the immobility of researchers may shed light on higher education policy.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the editor and three anonymous referees for their valuable comments.

COMPETING INTERESTS

The author has no competing interests.

FUNDING INFORMATION

This research did not receive any funding.

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DATA AVAILABILITY

The data used in this study are available in Zenodo: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7471514.

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