During the 1980's, there has been considerable concentration of research resources into 'Centres of Excellence' within higher education, in the belief that greater research output per capita would result. This article tests this belief for Australian university-based research centres in economics, recognizing that the conclusions may not be applicable to other disciplines.
Using a method which assigns points to publications according to the quality of the journal in which they appear, the research output of staff in six research centres was compared with that of lecturers in teaching departments of economics. Research centre staff were estimated to have 75 per cent greater time per head to carry out research. For the period 1974-78 and 1979-83 respectively, research output per capita in the research centres was 75 and 59 per cent greater than that of teaching departments. When time is taken into account, then, the evidence does not support the belief that research centres in economics are more productive. In the Australian context, it may be noted, there is little qualitative difference in the research produced by research centres and that of teaching departments.