In other words, how much of a lifetime salary bump does the average top-tier article result in?
For the sake of discussion, let's assume it's solo-authored, not fraudulent, and that it's substantively a "median" AJPS/APSR article (which is to say, it's not political theory or primarily qualitative).
Obviously it all depends on your career level, whether you're at a R1, etc. So that's why I'm asking for an estimated "average"
Averaged across all career levels, I would say about $5k-10k.
Lower (perhaps zero) if you're already tenured. Maybe higher if you're a grad student. But remember that at the end of the day, even junior professors often need to have multiple top hits by tenure review time (which is where the payoff from having such articles is the highest). So it's rarely the case that one single article is what makes or breaks someone's tenure case.
Top articles are almost certainly worth most at the start of your career in grad school since they have (theoretically) significant influence on your initial placement. After that point, a top article is worth less and less after you finish grad school. By the time you are tenured, most people probably receive only a negligible increase in salary from a single top article. Usually a single article does not lead to an outside offer with a higher salary.
But for a grad student, the increase in lifetime earnings could be a lot, possibly up to $50k, just from a single top article.
This is one of those cases where the average is meaningless, because nobody has average circumstances, the distribution is far from normal (heavily skewed towards $0), so it won’t tell you much.
It will tell you the number that minimizes MSE of the distribution. Normality has nothing to do with it. Why is this so hard for everyone to grasp?
Related question: how many second-tier papers are worth a single AJPS/APSR (assuming constant co-authors arrangements). Obviously, it depends on career stage.
Grad school/pre tenure: 1 AJPS/APSR is worth like 50 of PRQ for instance
Post tenure: 1 AJPS/APSR is worth 5 PRQ.
What do you think?
This is one of those cases where the average is meaningless, because nobody has average circumstances, the distribution is far from normal (heavily skewed towards $0), so it won’t tell you much.
It will tell you the number that minimizes MSE of the distribution. Normality has nothing to do with it. Why is this so hard for everyone to grasp?
And how will that help you plot your career path? It's just trivia.
In general, these questions seem silly because obviously everyone tries to write the best possible papers and then sees what happens. How would fixing a dollar amount to your specific career trajectory change your strategy?
Related question: how many second-tier papers are worth a single AJPS/APSR (assuming constant co-authors arrangements). Obviously, it depends on career stage.
Grad school/pre tenure: 1 AJPS/APSR is worth like 50 of PRQ for instance
Post tenure: 1 AJPS/APSR is worth 5 PRQ.
What do you think?
Another silly question and exactly why young scholars with long CVs full of PRQs wonder why they don't get any action. At a certain point, very few places care about number of pubs, it's all about contributions.
depending on what type of school you want a job at, a prq even can have negative expected value. seriously. at top 10 places they dont want the people with 5 prqs at all. a 6th just makes it worse. so this idea that 50 tier three papers = 1 tier one paper is wrong. if schools are trying to hire people making top tier impact, only tier one papers actually really matter.
Top pubs won't get you an interview if you don't have a pedigree from a top tier PhD program. If you're coming out of Wayne State with a solo APSR the committee will chalk it up to blind luck. And, to the posters point above, it's hard to determine impact on initial publication, that usually takes a few years.
In general, these questions seem silly because obviously everyone tries to write the best possible papers and then sees what happens. How would fixing a dollar amount to your specific career trajectory change your strategy?
Actually no. I think much of what is written on this thread explains two things we observe that deviate from "trying to write the best possible papers":
1. The incentives for research fraud are much, much stronger for grad students than for anyone else -- Grad students have the least to lose by getting caught for fraud, and the most to gain if they don't get caught.
2. This thread also explains the phenomenon of post-tenure professors shifting to other activities that are more lucrative than publishing an AJPS -- Specifically, much higher salaries through administrative service and doing work in private industry/consulting.
^Very true. For every LaCour who is caught, there are undoubtedly ten others who make it to a lucrative Princeton TT job (and perhaps stop committing fraud as the payoff for top articles begins to decrease).
Might even explain Enos' career trajectory: He probably won't commit any more fraud post-tenure.
In general, these questions seem silly because obviously everyone tries to write the best possible papers and then sees what happens. How would fixing a dollar amount to your specific career trajectory change your strategy?
Actually no. I think much of what is written on this thread explains two things we observe that deviate from "trying to write the best possible papers":
1. The incentives for research fraud are much, much stronger for grad students than for anyone else -- Grad students have the least to lose by getting caught for fraud, and the most to gain if they don't get caught.
2. This thread also explains the phenomenon of post-tenure professors shifting to other activities that are more lucrative than publishing an AJPS -- Specifically, much higher salaries through administrative service and doing work in private industry/consulting.
Yes, but neither of those strategies are informed by a meaningless 'average financial reward' from AJPS/APSR. Obviously people in different career circumstances value journals differently. We didn't need this thread for that wonderful insight!
Top pubs won't get you an interview if you don't have a pedigree from a top tier PhD program. If you're coming out of Wayne State with a solo APSR the committee will chalk it up to blind luck. And, to the posters point above, it's hard to determine impact on initial publication, that usually takes a few years.
This. Unless you're checking the DEI box, if you're not from a top 20 place, no amount of publications will get you a decent R1 gig. It's been like this for at least 20 years now. Pedigree means everything, publications only matter for tenure.