The complementarity of scientometrics and economics

Economists, especially those of the Chicago school, value systematic empiri cal evidence to support generalizations concerning human behavior. Hence, w hen studying the behavior of academic labor markets and the efficiency of a cademic institutions, they have naturally turned to scientometric measures to understand the phenomena and to test their theories. Economists and scie ntometricians share epistemic assumptions about the value of measurement an d the privileged epistemic status of science. It is therefore reasonable to hope and to expect that scientometricians and economists will find their r esearch programs complementary.