nep-sog New Economics Papers
on Sociology of Economics
Issue of 2017‒04‒02
two papers chosen by
Jonas Holmström
Axventure AB

  1. Standing on the shoulder of giants: The aspect of free-riding in RePEc rankings By Wohlrabe, Klaus; Meyer, Justus
  2. Six Dimensions of Concentration in Economics: Scientometric Evidence from a Large-Scale Data Set By Glötzl, Florentin; Aigner, Ernest

  1. By: Wohlrabe, Klaus; Meyer, Justus
    Abstract: RePEc rankings have become a well-established source of information about actual and perceived academic performance of institutions, academic fields and their authors. One essential ingredient are the impact factors calculated in RePEc which differ from the standard ones. RePEc reports the ratio of the cumulative citations of all articles of a journal and the number of listed items. The continuously updated RePEc impact factors account for the whole journal and citation history. This approach give rise to a potential free-riding of authors who profit from journal ranking established in the past. In this paper we demonstrate how the rankings of economists change if one calculates yearly impact factors. The distribution of gains and losses is most pronounced among middle-field ranked authors while the top group shows relative persistence.
    Keywords: impact factors; rankings; free-riding; RePEc
    JEL: A12 A14
    Date: 2017–03–21
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:77782&r=sog
  2. By: Glötzl, Florentin; Aigner, Ernest
    Abstract: This paper scientometrically investigates concentration in economics between 1956 and 2016 using a large-scale data set. It is revealed that economics is highly concentrated along six dimensions: articles, journals, regions, institutions, authors, and paradigms. North America accounts for half of all published articles and three quarters of all citations, while the top twenty academic institutions reap a share of 42 percent of all citations. The top 100 authors alone receive a share of 15 percent. Five journals account for 27.7 percent of all citations and only 8 percent of all articles, and 3 percent of all citations may be attributed to heterodox schools of thought. The overall Gini coefficient for the distribution of citations among articles is 0.72. Generally, concentration is found to increase towards the top of the discipline and to be higher and more persistent on the level of citations than on the level of articles. Concentration has increased over the last few decades, with the strongest increases occurring already until the 1970s.
    Keywords: concentration, economics, scientometrics
    Date: 2017–03
    URL: http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:wiw:wus045:5488&r=sog

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