David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants

you are at least a little bit skeptical of
that position. Shouldn’t a Big Fish at a
Little Pond be worth at least a second
look before a Little Fish at a Big Pond is
chosen?
Luckily there is a very simple way to
compare those two strategies. It comes
from the work of John Conley and Ali
Sina Önder on the graduates of PhD
programs in economics. In academic
economics, there are a handful of
economics journals that everyone in the
field reads and respects. The top
journals accept only the best and most
creative research and economists rate
one another according to—for the most
part—how many research articles they