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on Sociology of Economics |
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Issue of 2012‒06‒25
six papers chosen by Jonas Holmström Swedish School of Economics and Business Administration |
| By: | Anania, Giovanni; Caruso, Annarosa |
| Abstract: | The paper proposes two new simple indexes - the k and w indexes - to assess a scientist’s publications record based on citations. The two indexes are superior to the widely used h index (Hirsch, 2005), as they preserve all its valuable characteristics and try to overcome one of its known major shortcomings, i.e. that it uses only a fraction of the information contained in a scientist’s citations profile and, as a result, does not show a sufficiently fine ‘granularity’ (the h index is defined over the set of positive integers) to allow a fully satisfactory ranking of scientists. This problem is particularly acute in those disciplines, such as Economics, where scientific productivity and citation practices typically yield fewer citations per paper and, as a consequence, are characterized by ‘structurally’ lower values of the h indexes. Both the k and w indexes are defined over R+, fall in the right-open interval [h, h+1) and their integer part is conveniently equal to the scientist’s h index. While the h index is influenced only by part of the citations received by a scientist’s most-cited publications, the k index takes into account all the citations received by her most-cited publications and the w index accounts for the citations received by the entire set of her publications. Variants of the k and w indexes are proposed which account for co-authorship. The h index and the new indexes proposed are calculated for 332 professors of economics in Italian universities and the results obtained are used to rank Italian university departments. |
| Keywords: | bibliometrics, citation statistics, h-index, evaluating research in Economics, Research Methods/ Statistical Methods, A11., |
| Date: | 2012 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:ags:aieacp:124116&r=sog |
| By: | Chia-Lin Chang (Department of Applied Economics Department of Finance, National Chung Hsing University Taichung, Taiwan); Michael McAleer (Erasmus University Rotterdam,Tinbergen Institute,Kyoto University,Complutense University of Madrid); Les Oxley (Department of Economics University of Waikato New Zealand) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the practical usefulness of two new journal performance metrics, namely the Eigenfactor score, which may be interpreted as measuring “Journal Influence”, and the Article Influence score, using the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science (hereafter ISI) data for 2009 for the 200 most highly cited journals in each of the Sciences and Social Sciences, and compares them with two existing ISI metrics, namely Total Citations and the 5- year Impact Factor (5YIF) of a journal (including journal self citations). It is shown that the Sciences and Social Sciences are different in terms of the strength of the relationship of journal performance metrics, although the actual relationships are very similar. Moreover, the journal influence and article influence journal performance metrics are shown to be closely related empirically to the two existing ISI metrics, and hence add little in practical usefulness to what is already known. These empirical results are compared with existing results in the literature. |
| Keywords: | Journal performance metrics, Research assessment measures, Total citations, 5-year impact factor (5YIF), Eigenfactor, Journal and Article influence. |
| JEL: | A12 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:kyo:wpaper:822&r=sog |
| By: | David W Johnston (Monash); Marco Piatti (QUT); Benno Torgler (QUT) |
| Abstract: | This study investigates the citation patterns of theoretical and empirical papers over a period of almost 30 years, while also exploring the determinants of citation success. The results indicate that empirical papers attract more citation success than theoretical studies. However, the pattern over time is very similar with yearly mean citations peaking after around 4 years. Moreover, among empirical papers it appears that the cross-country studies are more successful than single country studies focusing on North America data or other regions. |
| Keywords: | Citations, Theory, Empirics, Cross-Country, North America |
| JEL: | A11 B40 C0 N01 Z0 |
| Date: | 2012–06–04 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qut:dpaper:284&r=sog |
| By: | Raquel Carrasco; Javier Ruiz-Castillo |
| Abstract: | This paper studies the evolution of research productivity of a sample of economists working in the best 81 departments in the world in 2007. The main novelty is that, in so far as a productivity distribution can be identified with an income distribution, we measure productivity mobility in a dynamic context using an indicator inspired in an income mobility index suggested by Chakravarty et al. (1985) for a twoperiod world. If aggregate productivity inequality increases (decreases) relative to the reference, immobile situation, then productivity mobility takes a positive (negative) sign. Productivity is measured in terms of publications, weighted by the citation impact of the journals where each article is published in the periodical literature. We study the evolution of average productivity, productivity inequality, the extent of rank reversals, and productivity mobility for seven cohorts, as well as the population as a whole. We offer new evidence confirming previous results about the heterogeneity of the evolution of productivity for top and other researchers. However, the major result is that –contrary to what was expected– for our sample of very highly productive people the effect of rank reversals between the two periods on overall productivity mobility offsets the effect of an increase in productivity inequality from the first to the second period |
| Keywords: | Research productivity, Income mobility, Productivity mobility, Structural and exchange mobility, Inequality decomposition |
| JEL: | A11 A12 B41 D63 I32 |
| Date: | 2012–06 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cte:werepe:we1216&r=sog |
| By: | Cunningham, Rosemary (Agnes Scott College); Zavodny, Madeline (Agnes Scott College) |
| Abstract: | The proportion female in the economics profession in the U.S. has been low historically compared with other disciplines. Although the percentage of Ph.D. degrees awarded to women and the representation of women on faculties have increased over time, economics still lags many other fields. Previous research has documented gender gaps in tenure, promotion and publication, some of which have narrowed over time. This study examines another aspect of women's representation within the economics profession: their participation in a session at the American Economic Association annual meeting. We examine the gender of participants on the program at the 1985-2010 meetings to determine how women's participation at this important venue has changed over the past 25 years. The results show that women's participation has increased over time, particularly since 2002. However, women appear to be underrepresented on the program relative to other measures of their representation in the profession. |
| Keywords: | women in economics, economics profession, academic labor market |
| JEL: | A1 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6597&r=sog |
| By: | Menatallah Darrag (Faculty of Management Technology, The German University in Cairo); Dina Mohamed Yousri (Faculty of Management Technology, The German University in Cairo); Ahmed Badreldin (Faculty of Management, University of Marburg, Germany) |
| Abstract: | Academic dishonesty (AD) is an ongoing concern for authorities in higher education, where its importance is manifested in two folds. First, AD negatively affects the integrity and quality of research of individuals and institutions; and secondly it negatively affects the honesty level of the youth with far-reaching consequences for ethics and performance. Although AD is a challenge for all societies, there is strong evidence that developing countries are more prone to suffer from AD than developed countries. This exploratory paper follows similar studies for other countries, addressing the dimension of AD within higher education in Egypt. The results confirm significant levels of AD, with the top practice being to work cooperatively on individually assigned tasks. Interestingly, there are differences between the faculties, but not between public and private institutions. Management students, for example, showed by far the highest willingness to cheat on exams or to plagiarize. |
| Keywords: | Academic dishonesty, higher education, Egypt |
| JEL: | I20 I23 |
| Date: | 2012–05 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:guc:wpaper:31&r=sog |