Does alphabetization significantly affect academic careers?

Abstract

There is a considerable evidence that academicians who have surname initials that are placed early in the alphabet have advantage in publications, citations and other academic outcomes when they work in academic fields that order author names alphabetically. We analyze the distributions of the full professors' surnames initial letters in nine academic fields. We are unable to find the expected effect of alphabetization on the academic careers. The academicians who have surname initials that are placed early in the alphabet are not more prevalent in alphabetic academic fields compared to non-alphabetic academic fields. The academicians who are at the top departments are not more likely to have surname initials that are placed early in the alphabet compared to the academicians who are at the lower ranked departments.