Post-docing

Greetings patrons,

It’s time for another research update. In today’s newsletter, two things:

1. A peek into academic publishing

2. I’m start a postdoc in July!

A peek into academic publishing

One of the things I like most about blogging is that in many ways it is the opposite of academic publishing. For one thing, blogposts can have jokes, academic articles less so. Blogposts can have colorful language (i.e. swearing), academic articles cannot. But more than anything, what I like about blogging is that it is fast. My typically turn around from idea to post is a week or so. Sure, I may fall flat on my face and make mistakes. But I don’t mind that. It’s part of doing science.

That said, I continue to publish in academic journals because that’s what scientists are expected to do. So in this update, I thought I’d give you a peek into the publishing process.

First of all, it is usually painfully slow. On the fast end are journals like the Real-World Economics Review (RWER), which typically takes a few months to review and publish articles. That speed is quite rare. (Even more rare is the fact that RWER is both open access and has no author fees. That makes it one of my favourite journals.)

On the slow end are journals that take years to publish. Sometimes that’s due to lengthy peer review. My paper ‘How the Rich Are Different’, for instance, was stuck in peer review (at the Review of Radical Political Economics) for over a year. The reviewers requested major revisions, which I completed … only to have the revised paper rejected. After a few more subsequent rejections, I ended up getting the thing published at the Journal of Computational Social Science — an interdisciplinary journal that is open minded. The whole process took 2 years.

I suspect that part of my problem with academic publishing is my approach to science. If I was doing what Thomas Kuhn called ’normal science’ (filling in small cracks in knowledge), I would have fewer issues. The trouble is, most of my papers call bullshit on fairly big ideas in economics. Hence I usually have some, shall we say, ‘colorful’ objections from reviewers and editors.

That brings me to my most recent paper, ‘Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market’. The paper investigates the growth of hierarchy with economic development, framed in the context of free market theory vs. evolutionary ideas about multilevel selection. I just finished revisions for the paper, which is under consideration at the Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review. (I know nothing about the journal, other than that it is open to evolutionary ideas. I long ago gave up looking for ‘prestigious’ journals in which to publish.)

In this case, the reviewers were quite helpful (if a bit anal). The revised paper is much improved … but is now (at 66 pages) more of a short book. The new version is up at the Open Science Framework. I’m quite proud of this paper, so I hope it gets published.

I’m start a postdoc in July!

I am excited to tell you that in July, I will be starting a postdoctoral fellowship at York University, supervised by Jonathan Nitzan. I worked with Jonathan during my PhD, but luckily he was not my supervisor, which made him eligible to supervise my postdoc.

If you’re not an academic, you may be wondering — what’s a ‘postdoc’? Well, it’s basically a job that universities invented in the 1970s when there were too many PhD graduates who couldn’t find jobs as professors. Someone got the bright idea to hire these graduates back in a kind of limbo between employee and student. Postdocs get paid (fortunately), but nothing like tenured professors.

Many postdoc positions are attached to the funding of ‘principle investigators’ who then tell you (the postdoc) what to do. I’ve resisted doing this kind of work because, well, I can’t stand being told what to do. Luckily my postdoc at York has no strings attached. I wrote up a proposal to do research on hierarchy, and that’s what I’m going to do.

The postdoc will last for one year, with the possibility of a one-year renewal. The position will certainly make my life easier, as I won’t have to brave the din of high schools to get a pay check.

The postdoc is also a checkmark on my CV, if I ever want to get a tenure-track position. But on that front, I increasingly feel like academia is a hostile place to do science. The constant pressure to get grants and appease administrators is not conducive to creative thinking. That’s why Steve Keen chose to leave the university system and crowdfund his research. (He recounts his journey in this recent interview.)

I’m increasingly optimistic about forging a similar career.

Until next time

That’s it for this update. I hope that when I write my next newsletter, the covid craziness will be winding down. Here in Toronto, we’re in the midst of a 3rd wave, set for another lockdown. Hopefully the summer will bring some relief.

Cheers,

Blair