Friday 25 November 2022

The economists' fantasy league

RePEc (Research Papers in Economics) has a new feature: The IDEAS Fantasy League:

The IDEAS fantasy league allows you to pretend you are at the helm of an economics department. Your goal is to improve its ranking relative to other departments in the league. You can do this by trading economists and by choosing which ones to activate in your roster.

Yes, it is fantasy football, but played with economists. I gave up on fantasy football some years ago, after I was spending way too much time on my roster. But I couldn't resist setting up a team of economists. I even drafted quite well, getting Guido Imbens (who ranks #23 in the world on RePEc's 10-year ranking, which is what is used for determining the fantasy league standings) and Justin Wolfers (he's only ranked in the top 8% of economists, but as one of my favourite economists, I still think it is cool that he is in my roster).

On the transfer market, I notice that someone has already put up James Heckman for auction. Could be a steal for someone willing to bid enough to get him (Heckman is ranked #55 overall).

Sadly, the league is only open to economists who have a RePEc profile. Some of the rules are kind of amusing, like not being able to short an economist, and not being able to have yourself on your roster. However, I wonder whether there are incentives to start citing the economists on your roster, or co-authoring with them, in order to boost their ranking?

It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I'll update you on my roster's progress.

[Update: Apparently, this is not a new feature - it's been around since about 2013, and I've only just become aware of it!]

[HT: Marginal Revolution]

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