They are awarded for their paper “The Geography and Concentration of Authorship in the Top Five: Implications for European Economics”. They study to what degree authors who publish in the five most prestigious journals in economics have previously published there and where they are based.
Their paper shows that only around 5% of all articles each year are written solely by authors from outside the U.S. who publish in the top five for the first time. This share has not increased since the mid-1990s. The authors argue that European institutions should be wary of putting too much emphasis on publishing in these five journals. Both the advancement and diversity of the economics discipline may otherwise suffer.
The Scottish Economic Society awards the Prize upon recommendation of the Scottish Journal of Political Economy’s International Editorial Board. The formal award of the Prize takes place at the concluding Gala Dinner of the Scottish Economic Society’s Annual Conference on the 28th of April 2020.