| By: |
Wohlrabe, Klaus;
Bornmann, Lutz |
| Abstract: |
This study is intended to facilitate fair research evaluations in economics.
Field- and time-normalization of citation impact is the standard method in
bibliometrics. Since citation rates for journal papers differ substantially
across publication years and Journal of Economic Literature (JEL)
classification codes, citation rates should be normalized for the comparison
of papers across different time periods and economic subfields. Without
normalization, both factors that are independent of research quality bias the
results of citation analyses. We introduce two normalized indicators in
economics, which are the most important indicators in bibliometrics: (1) the
mean normalized citation score (MNCS) compares the citation impact of a focal
paper with the mean impact of similar papers published in the same economic
subfield and publication year. (2) PPtop 50% is the share of papers that
belong to the above-average half in a certain subfield and time period. Since
the MNCS is based on arithmetic averages despite skewed citation
distributions, we recommend using PPtop 50% for fair comparisons of entities
in economics (e.g. researchers, institutions, or countries). In this study, we
apply the method to 294 journals (including normalized scores for 192,524
papers) by assigning them to four citation impact classes and identifying 33
outstandingly cited economics journals. |
| Keywords: |
Bibliometrics, citations, JEL codes, journal ranking, mean normalized citation score (MNCS), citation percentile, PPtop 50% |
| JEL: |
A11 A12 A14 |
| Date: |
2017–07–26 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:80384&r=sog |