Think Tanks: who's hot and who's not; the latest study comparing economic think tank visibility in the media. The hot economists and hot topics.

• Author: Posen, Adam S.
• Position: Cover Story

Independent public policy research institutions, aka "Think Tanks," are major contributors to the policy debate in the US and worldwide. Drawing on a small but well-defined community of scholars with the combination of academic training and practical policy interests--and usually some policymaking experience--these institutions influence legislative and executive decisions, educate the public about policy issues, and bring together disparate interest groups in substantive discussion. They also receive a significant share of foundation, corporate, and NGO funding of policy relevant research, as well as provide advice, and sometimes high-level appointees, to the US government and the major international organizations.

Small wonder then that the relative influence of particular think tanks and of individual scholars within the community elicits a great deal of interest, even for those not involved in the game themselves. An article in the September/October 2000 issue of this magazine, evaluating the press visibility of specifically economic policy think tanks and their scholars over 1997-1999, attracted a great deal of attention (1). In it, the top three tanks in press citations on economics were found to be Brookings, the Institute for International Economics [IIE], and the American Enterprise Institute [AEI], and the top three individual economists were Fred Bergsten of IIE, and Robert Litan and Nicholas Lardy of Brookings.

Large parts of the think tank community were pleased if not surprised by the study and its results. Beyond the obvious satisfactions for those of us affiliated with the top ranked institutions, there was a useful benchmarking aspect for a profession whose ability to track effectiveness often seems limited. While press visibility is only one measure of a think tank's or individual economist's influence, it is an important one, given the well-known feedback loops between visibility and access to policymakers, credibility of research, public awareness of proposals, and breadth of support for those proposals.

It also is a reasonably objective measure of influence. Reporters for the major mainstream press have an interest in presenting authoritative and representative views on the important policy issues of the day--they will quote those people who are most useful to them on these criteria. To whatever degree particular think tank scholars are covered more because of their ability to clearly convey their analyses, that probably correlates with similar added impact on Capitol Hill and in meetings with decision-makers. Moreover, thanks to electronically searchable databases, the extent of press coverage of individuals can be verified without bias.

For these reasons, we undertook to extend Nicolas Ruble's earlier survey, both in time and over institutions considered. In this article, we report the results of a study of the number of press citations by think tank and by scholar for 16 research institutions in the major news publications over a five-year period, July 1, 1997 through June 30, 2002 (2). The basic principle for inclusion was that the scholar in question had to be listed by one of the considered think tanks as a senior-level (non-visiting, but not necessarily resident) researcher with primary areas of work in economics.

There were several questions that only this longer study, which spans changing agendas and presidential administrations, could answer, in addition to giving those included updates on "How'm I doin'?"

* First, is the demand for think tank commentary driven by the relative priority of differing news stories? So, for example, would the number of citations given to economists working on international issues decline as the Asian Crisis receded and Monicagate and the 2000 Presidential election came to the fore? (Short answer, yes, but in 2001-2002 global issues came back.)

* Second, to what degree does the partisan environment in Washington affect who is quoted? Are more conservative think tanks and economists given greater coverage under a Republican presidency? (Short answer, yes, but not hugely so.)

* Third, are there consistent personalities and qualities to think tanks? Or do the rankings and impact of them reflect changing fashions? (Short answer, no, those on top tend to stay on top, and their staffs tend to be stable, reinforcing the rankings.)

* Fourth, are there patterns in which publications favor which think tanks? For example, do domestically based and oriented US publications pay less attention to global economic issues than some international publications? (Short answer, yes, indeed, global coverage is greater in global papers.)

* Finally, how do the most cited economists compare to their peers, both to other think tank economists and to well-known academics, in terms of their visibility? (Short answer, the best-known think tank economists tend to gather at the same think tanks, and to garner citations comparable to all but a pair of academic superstars--guess who?)

And bottom line, which scholars are doing well in the press? Over the last five years, the top three think tanks by press citations are the same as in 1997-1999: Brookings first, IIE second, and AEI third in total cites, and IIe first, Brookings second, and AEI third if ranked by citations per economist, though AEI has closed the gap on both counts in recent years. The rest of the economics think tanks have a long way to go before catching up with the big three. The most cited individual think tank economists were pretty stable over the five year period as well: Fred Bergsten first, Robert Litan second, with Robert Reischauer moving into third place after taking over the Urban Institute (Nicholas Lardy, who was in third from 1997-1999, moved to fifth place overall).

1. THINK TANK BY THINK TANK

   The Competitors [see Table 1] are sixteen think tanks well-known in Washington and worldwide (3). Some are multi-issue, like Hoover or CSIS, while some focus solely on economic issues, like ESI, but all are ranked here solely on the basis of their economics scholars' citations, to compare like with like. The political spectrum runs from libertarian right like Cato to labor-backed left like EPI. And some have a dedicated domestic focus, like the Urban Institute, while others are dedicated to international issues, like CFR.

   As can be seen in Table 2, Brookings, IIE, and AEI are ranked 1-2-3 in total cites, with Brookings having nearly twice as many cites (1244) in total over the five years as either IIE (771) or AEI (624). Cato is in fourth place with 341, behind the top three by a noticeable margin, but also a comfortable amount ahead of the remaining think tanks. EPI, Hoover, Heritage, Urban, and CBPP are clustered together in the same range (180-265 cites over five years), with the remaining seven far behind. For think tanks whose primary focus is other than economics (CFR, CSIS), their low overall ranking should not be a surprise.

   In terms of partisanship, there seems to be quite a bit of even-handedness by the press, with the most middle of the road/academic think tanks most cited, and an even split between left and right think tanks in the next tier of visibility. This was consistent over the period, with Brookings number 1 in total cites all five years, IIE in second in 4 out of 5 years, and AEI in third in 4 out of 5 years. The most noticeable improvements in visibility were for the Urban Institute after Reischauer took over, and recently by...