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Leadership in Scholarship: Editors’ Appointments and the Profession’s Narrative

Author

Listed:
  • Ali Sina Önder

    (University of Portsmouth)

  • Sergey V. Popov

    (Cardiff Business School and HSE University)

  • Sascha Schweitzer

    (University of Bayreuth)

Abstract

Academic journals disseminate new knowledge, and therefore can influence the direction and composition of ongoing research by choosing what to publish. We study the change in the topic structure of papers published in the American Economic Review (AER) after the appointments of editors and coeditors of the AER between 1985 and 2011 using a textual analysis of accepted publications. We compare AER’s topic structure to that of the other top general interest journals. The appointment of new AER editors, while accompanied by a minor co-movement of AER topics towards topics of editors’ post-appointment publications, is not an indicator of editors’ personal taste in topics, but rather indicates the desire of those who appoint editors to premediate trends in other Top 5 journals.

Suggested Citation

  • Ali Sina Önder & Sergey V. Popov & Sascha Schweitzer, 2021. "Leadership in Scholarship: Editors’ Appointments and the Profession’s Narrative," Working Papers in Economics & Finance 2021-05, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Business School, Economics and Finance Subject Group.
    • Handle: RePEc:pbs:ecofin:2021-05
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Academia; Knowledge Dissemination; Journals; Editors; Publications; Latent Dirichlet Allocation; Topic Analysis.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • O3 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights

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