IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2304.04242.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Who are the gatekeepers of economics? Geographic diversity, gender composition, and interlocking editorship of journal boards

Author

Listed:
  • Alberto Baccini
  • Cristina Re

Abstract

This study investigates the role of editorial board members as gatekeepers in science, creating and utilizing a database of 1,516 active economics journals in 2019, which includes more than 44,000 scholars from over 6,000 institutions and 142 countries. The composition of these editorial boards is explored in terms of geographic affiliation, institutional affiliation, and gender. Results highlight that the academic publishing environment is primarily governed by men affiliated with elite universities in the United States. The study further explores social similarities among journals using a network analysis perspective based on interlocking editorship. Comparison of networks generated by all scholars, editorial leaders, and non-editorial leaders reveals significant structural similarities and associations among clusters of journals. These results indicate that links between pairs of journals tend to be redundant, and this can be interpreted in terms of social and intellectual homophily within each board, and between boards of journals belonging to the same cluster. Finally, the analysis of the most central journals and scholars in the networks suggests that journals probably adopt 'strategic decisions' in the selection of the editorial board members. The documented high concentration of editorial power poses a serious risk to innovative research in economics.

Suggested Citation

  • Alberto Baccini & Cristina Re, 2023. "Who are the gatekeepers of economics? Geographic diversity, gender composition, and interlocking editorship of journal boards," Papers 2304.04242, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2304.04242
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/2304.04242
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alberto Baccini, 2009. "Italian Economic Journals. A Network-based Ranking and an Exploratory Analysis of their Influence on Setting International Professional Standards," Rivista italiana degli economisti, Società editrice il Mulino, issue 3, pages 491-512.
    2. Loet Leydesdorff & Caroline Wagner, 2009. "Is the United States losing ground in science? A global perspective on the world science system," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 78(1), pages 23-36, January.
    3. Baccini, Alberto & Barabesi, Lucio, 2011. "Seats at the table: The network of the editorial boards in information and library science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 5(3), pages 382-391.
    4. João Ricardo Faria, 2005. "The Game Academics Play: Editors versus Authors," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 57(1), pages 1-12, January.
    5. Eduardo Kunzel Teixeira & Mirian Oliveira, 2018. "Editorial board interlocking in knowledge management and intellectual capital research field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(3), pages 1853-1869, December.
    6. Hodgson, Geoffrey M & Rothman, Harry, 1999. "The Editors and Authors of Economics Journals: A Case of Institutional Oligopoly?," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 109(453), pages 165-186, February.
    7. Shelly Lundberg & Jenna Stearns, 2019. "Women in Economics: Stalled Progress," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 33(1), pages 3-22, Winter.
    8. Manuel Goyanes & Luis de-Marcos, 2020. "Academic influence and invisible colleges through editorial board interlocking in communication sciences: a social network analysis of leading journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 791-811, May.
    9. Duarte, Pedro Garcia & Giraud, Yann, 2016. "The Place Of The History Of Economic Thought In Mainstream Economics, 1991–2011, Viewed Through A Bibliographic Survey," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 38(4), pages 431-462, December.
    10. Dengsheng Wu & Xiaoli Lu & Jianping Li & Jing Li, 2020. "Does the institutional diversity of editorial boards increase journal quality? The case economics field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1579-1597, August.
    11. Elisabetta Addis & Paola Villa, 2003. "The Editorial Boards of Italian Economics Journals: Women, Gender, and Social Networking," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 9(1), pages 75-91.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shuo Xu & Mengjia An & Xin An, 2021. "Do scientific publications by editorial board members have shorter publication delays and then higher influence?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(8), pages 6697-6713, August.
    2. Baccini, Federica & Barabesi, Lucio & Baccini, Alberto & Khelfaoui, Mahdi & Gingras, Yves, 2022. "Similarity network fusion for scholarly journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(1).
    3. Yundong Xie & Qiang Wu & Xingchen Li, 2019. "Editorial team scholarly index (ETSI): an alternative indicator for evaluating academic journal reputation," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(3), pages 1333-1349, September.
    4. Zhang, Tianjiao & Shi, Jin & Situ, Lingyun, 2021. "The correlation between author-editorial cooperation and the author’s publications in journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1).
    5. Eduardo Kunzel Teixeira & Mirian Oliveira, 2018. "Editorial board interlocking in knowledge management and intellectual capital research field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 117(3), pages 1853-1869, December.
    6. Cloos, Janis & Greiff, Matthias & Rusch, Hannes, 2020. "Geographical Concentration and Editorial Favoritism within the Field of Laboratory Experimental Economics (RM/19/029-revised-)," Research Memorandum 014, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    7. João Faria & Rajeev Goel, 2010. "Returns to networking in academia," Netnomics, Springer, vol. 11(2), pages 103-117, July.
    8. Besancenot, Damien & Vranceanu, Radu, 2008. "Can incentives for research harm research? A business schools' tale," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1248-1265, June.
    9. Bruno S. Frey & Katja Rost, 2010. "Do rankings reflect research quality?," Journal of Applied Economics, Universidad del CEMA, vol. 13, pages 1-38, May.
    10. Ann Mari May & Mary G. McGarvey & Yana Rodgers & Mark Killingsworth, 2021. "Critiques, Ethics, Prestige and Status: A Survey of Editors in Economics," Eastern Economic Journal, Palgrave Macmillan;Eastern Economic Association, vol. 47(2), pages 295-318, April.
    11. Manuel Goyanes & Luis de-Marcos, 2020. "Academic influence and invisible colleges through editorial board interlocking in communication sciences: a social network analysis of leading journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(2), pages 791-811, May.
    12. Guillaume Cabanac, 2012. "Shaping the landscape of research in information systems from the perspective of editorial boards: A scientometric study of 77 leading journals," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(5), pages 977-996, May.
    13. Guillaume Cabanac, 2012. "Shaping the landscape of research in information systems from the perspective of editorial boards: A scientometric study of 77 leading journals," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(5), pages 977-996, May.
    14. Alberto Baccini & Lucio Barabesi, 2010. "Interlocking editorship. A network analysis of the links between economic journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 82(2), pages 365-389, February.
    15. Rajeev K. Goel & João Ricardo Faria, 2007. "Proliferation Of Academic Journals: Effects On Research Quantity And Quality," Metroeconomica, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(4), pages 536-549, November.
    16. Damien Besancenot & Kim Huynh & Joao Faria, 2012. "Search and research: the influence of editorial boards on journals’ quality," Theory and Decision, Springer, vol. 73(4), pages 687-702, October.
    17. Mirucki, Jean & Poshyvak, Maria, 2006. ""Ukraine" in scholarly publications: An analysis based on econLit," MPRA Paper 29090, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Mirucki, Jean & Nicot, Bernadette & Poshyvak, Maria, 2007. "What Can EconLit Reveal Us About Ukraine's Scholarly Production?," MPRA Paper 29089, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. João Ricardo Faria & Rajeev K. Goel, 2016. "Academic Publication Uncertainty and Publishing Behavior: A Game-Theoretic Perspective," CESifo Working Paper Series 6176, CESifo.
    20. Heintzelman Martin & Nocetti Diego, 2009. "Where Should we Submit our Manuscript? An Analysis of Journal Submission Strategies," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-28, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2304.04242. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.