Research Output in Australian University Economics Departments, 1974–83*

The move towards greater public-sector efficiency has meant considerable changes in resource allocation to higher education. An efficient and equitable restructuring of the sector will be greatly assisted by the sensible use of appropriate performance indicators. This article extends previous work, which looked at the quantity of refereed publications, by developing research performance indicators based on citations, research grants, and peer review. While there is a moderately strong positive relationship between the quantity of publications and citations indicators, research funding seems to be of quite limited importance to economics departments, and peer reviews need to be checked against more objective measures.