Another inside joke among academic economists is that the highly ranked PhD students find dissertation and paper topics by looking at low rank publications. Bas

Another inside joke among academic economists is that the highly ranked PhD students find dissertation and paper topics by looking at low rank publications. Basically the low ranks don’t get into good journals due in large part to their school, so high ranks can just take their work, spin it a bit, and then publish in a top tier journal that their buddies referee.