nep-sog New Economics Papers
on Sociology of Economics
Issue of 2012‒02‒20
seven papers chosen by
Jonas Holmström
Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration

  1. The evaluation of citation distributions. By Ruiz-Castillo, Javier
  2. Ranking accounting, banking and finance journals: A note By Halkos, George; Tzeremes, Nickolaos
  3. Ranking the ‘Diamond Core’ economic journals: A note By Halkos, George; Tzeremes, Nickolaos
  4. Ranking agricultural, environmental and natural resource economics journals: A note By Halkos, George; Tzeremes, Nickolaos
  5. Die Zitationshäufigkeit als Qualitätsindikator im Rahmen der Forschungsleistungsmessung By Müller, Harry
  6. Your right arm for a publication in AER? By Attema, Arthur; Brouwer, Werner; van Exel, J
  7. Do Economists Lie More? By López-Pérez, Raúl; Spiegelman, Eli

  1. By: Ruiz-Castillo, Javier
    Abstract: This paper reviews a number of recent contributions that demonstrate that a blend of welfare economics and statistical analysis is useful in the evaluation of the citations received by scientifi papers in the periodical literature. The paper begins by clarifying the role of citation analysis in the evaluation of research. Next, a summary of results about the citation distributions’ basic features at different aggregation levels is offered. These results indicate that citation distributions share the same broad shape, are highly skewed, and are often crowned by a power law. In light of this evidence, a novel methodology for the evaluation of research units is illustrated by comparing the high- and low-citation impact achieved by the US, the European Union, and the rest of the world in 22 scientifi fields However, contrary to recent claims, it is shown that mean normalization at the sub-fiel level does not lead to a universal distribution. Nevertheless, among other topics subject to ongoing research, it appears that this lack of universality does not preclude sensible normalization procedures to compare the citation impact of articles in different scientifi fields
    Keywords: Citation analysis; Power law; Research performance; Poverty measurement; European paradox;
    JEL: O31 Y80 Z00
    Date: 2011–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ner:carlos:info:hdl:10016/13323&r=sog
  2. By: Halkos, George; Tzeremes, Nickolaos
    Abstract: This paper by applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) ranks Economics journals in the field of Accounting, Banking and Finance. By using one composite input and one composite output the paper ranks 57 journals. In addition for the first time three different quality ranking reports have been incorporated to the DEA modelling problem in order to classify the journals into four categories (‘A’ to ‘D’). The results reveal that the journals with the highest rankings in the field are Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Accounting Review, Journal of Accounting and Economics, Journal of Accounting Research and Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.
    Keywords: Rankings; Economics Journals; Accounting Journals; Banking Journals; Finance Journals; Data Envelopment Analysis
    JEL: C14 C02 A10 G00 A11
    Date: 2012–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:36166&r=sog
  3. By: Halkos, George; Tzeremes, Nickolaos
    Abstract: By estimating the production frontier with the application of Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) we rank the ‘Diamond Core’ economic journals as has been presented by Diamond (1989). By using one composite input and one composite output the paper ranks 27 core economics journals. For the first time a study attempts to rank the 27 journals by using data from SCOPUS database for the time period of 1996-2010. In addition for the first time three different quality ranking reports are incorporated in the DEA modelling problem in order to classify the journals into four categories (‘A’ to ‘D’). The results reveal that from the 27 ‘core’ economics journals the five journals with the highest rankings are Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic Literature, Review of Economic Studies and American Economic Review. In addition it appears that the journals’ impact factor derived from SSCI database reflects their ranking position.
    Keywords: Rankings; Economics Journals; Diamond’s core Journals; Data Envelopment Analysis
    JEL: C14 C02 A10 A11
    Date: 2012–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:36589&r=sog
  4. By: Halkos, George; Tzeremes, Nickolaos
    Abstract: This paper by applying Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) ranks for the first time Economics journals in the field of Agricultural, Environmental and Natural Resource. Specifically, by using one composite input and one composite output the paper ranks 32 journals. In addition for the first time three different quality ranking reports have been incorporated to the DEA modelling problem in order to classify the journals into four categories (‘A’ to ‘D’). The results reveal that the journals with the highest rankings in the field are Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Land Economics, American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Journal of Agricultural Economics, Energy Journal, Resource and Energy Economics, Environment and Planning A, Ecological Economics and European Review of Agricultural Economics.
    Keywords: Journals Rankings; Agricultural Economics; Environmental Economics; Natural Resource Economics; Data Envelopment Analysis
    JEL: Q00 C14 C02 A10 A11
    Date: 2012–01
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:36233&r=sog
  5. By: Müller, Harry
    Abstract: Dieser Beitrag widmet sich den Problemen und Anwendungsfeldern der Forschungsleistungsmessung mit Hilfe von Zitationen. Dazu ist zunächst grundlegend zu klären, weshalb Zitationen als Indikator für Forschungsleistung geeignet sind und wo die Grenzen dieses Konzepts liegen. Darauf aufbauend sollen die gängigen Methoden zur Erstellung wissenschaftlicher Rankings vorgestellt und kritisch bewertet werden. Dabei stellt sich heraus, dass für eine deutschsprachige Sozialwissenschaft wie die Betriebswirtschaftslehre, an deren Beispiel in diesem Beitrag argumentiert wird, zahlreiche Besonderheiten zu berücksichtigen sind. Bei der Wahl der geeigneten Rankingmethode muss bedacht werden, dass die Publikationen z. T. in deutscher Sprache erscheinen und neben wissenschaftlichen Zeitschriften auch Monographien und Sammelbände wichtige Publikationsmedien sind. Bei Berücksichtigung dessen lässt sich folgern, dass zitationsbasierte Verfahren trotz ihrer spezifischen Schwächen die für viele Zwecke am besten geeignete Methodik darstellen. -- This article addresses the problems and application fields of using citations as a measure of research performance. First, it is pointed out why citations are a useful indicator of research performance and what defines the limits of this approach. Thereon, the current methods for constructing research rankings will be presented and critically evaluated. It turns out that for a social science like business administration, several peculiarities have to be considered: Research findings are often published in German language, and besides scientific journals, monographs and edited volumes are equally important types of research media. By taking this into account, it can be argued that despite some specific weaknesses citation based approaches are the most appropriate methodology for accessing research performance under many circumstances.
    JEL: I23 I20 A11
    Date: 2012
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:zbw:umiodp:12012&r=sog
  6. By: Attema, Arthur; Brouwer, Werner; van Exel, J
    Abstract: The time tradeoff (TTO) method is popular in medical decision making for valuing health states. We use it to elicit economists’ preferences for publishing in top economic journals and living without limbs. The economists value the journals highly, and have a clear preference between them, with American Economic Review (AER) the most preferred. Their responses imply they would sacrifice more than half a thumb for publishing in AER. The TTO results are consistent with ranking and willingness to pay results, and indicate that preferences for journals are neither guided by influence factors, nor by expectations of a resulting salary rise.
    Keywords: Utility Measurement; Time Tradeoff; Willingness to pay; Publications
    JEL: A10 B41 I10
    Date: 2012–01–31
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:36335&r=sog
  7. By: López-Pérez, Raúl (Departamento de Análisis Económico (Teoría e Historia Económica). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.); Spiegelman, Eli (Departement des sciences économiques, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montréal, Canada.)
    Abstract: Recent experimental evidence suggests that some people dislike telling lies, and tell the truth even at a cost. We use experiments as well to study the socio-demographic covariates of such lie aversion, and find gender and religiosity to be without predictive value. However, subjects’ major is predictive: Business and Economics (B&E) subjects lie significantly more frequently than other majors. This is true even after controlling for subjects’ beliefs about the overall rate of deception, which predict behavior very well: Although B&E subjects expect most others to lie in our decision problem, the effect of major remains. An instrumental variables analysis suggests that the effect is not simply one of selection: It seems that studying B&E has a causal impact on behavior.
    Keywords: Communication; honesty; lie aversion; major; norms.
    JEL: C70 C91 D03 D64
    Date: 2012–02
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:uam:wpaper:201204&r=sog

This nep-sog issue is ©2012 by Jonas Holmström. It is provided as is without any express or implied warranty. It may be freely redistributed in whole or in part for any purpose. If distributed in part, please include this notice.
General information on the NEP project can be found at http://nep.repec.org. For comments please write to the director of NEP, Marco Novarese at <director@nep.repec.org>. Put “NEP” in the subject, otherwise your mail may be rejected.
NEP’s infrastructure is sponsored by the School of Economics and Finance of Massey University in New Zealand.