Who are Our Experts? Predictors of Participation in Expert Surveys. Peace Economics, Peace Science and Public Policy . Ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.1515/peps-2020-0007
Who are the colleagues participating when asked to complete expert surveys? This research note systematically investigates the self-selection of experts. The positive news is that individuals with higher levels of context-specific expertise are more likely to self-select as experts. The negative news is that non-expertise related factors lead to systematic under-representations of certain scholars. In particular, female scholars and scholars with high citation outputs tend to be under-represented in expert surveys. We explain these findings primarily with resource constraints such as diminished time capacities. Academia should indeed rethink its incentive structures to give all types of scholars the opportunity to contribute to our data generation processes thanks to their knowledge.