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The Matthew effect in economics reconsidered

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  • Birkmaier, Daniel
  • Wohlrabe, Klaus

Abstract

We apply the test of Ijiri and Simon (1974) to a large data set of authors in economics. This test has been used by Tol (2009, 2013a) to identify a (within-author) Matthew effect for authors based on citations. We show that the test is quite sensitive to its underlying assumptions and identifies too often a potential Matthew effect. We propose an alternative test based on the pure form of Gibrat's law. It states that stochastic proportionate citation growth, i.e. independent of its size, leads to a lognormal distribution. By using a one-sided Kolmogorov–Smirnov test we test for deviations from the lognormal distribution which we interpret as an indication of the Matthew effect. Using our large data set we also explore potential empirical characteristics of economists with a Matthew effect.

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  • Birkmaier, Daniel & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2014. "The Matthew effect in economics reconsidered," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 880-889.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:infome:v:8:y:2014:i:4:p:880-889
    DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2014.08.005
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    1. Jan Eeckhout, 2004. "Gibrat's Law for (All) Cities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(5), pages 1429-1451, December.
    2. Gabaix, Xavier & Ioannides, Yannis M., 2004. "The evolution of city size distributions," Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, in: J. V. Henderson & J. F. Thisse (ed.), Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 53, pages 2341-2378, Elsevier.
    3. Richard S.J. Tol, 2009. "The Matthew effect defined and tested for the 100 most prolific economists," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(2), pages 420-426, February.
    4. Seiler, Christian & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2012. "Ranking economists on the basis of many indicators: An alternative approach using RePEc data," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 389-402.
    5. Ijiri, Yuji & Simon, Herbert A, 1974. "Interpretations of Departures from the Pareto Curve Firm-Size Distributions," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 82(2), pages 315-331, Part I, M.
    6. Tol, Richard S.J., 2013. "The Matthew effect for cohorts of economists," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 522-527.
    7. Wang, Jian, 2014. "Unpacking the Matthew effect in citations," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(2), pages 329-339.
    8. Xavier Gabaix, 1999. "Zipf's Law for Cities: An Explanation," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 114(3), pages 739-767.
    9. Anne‐Wil Harzing & Ron van der Wal, 2009. "A Google Scholar h‐index for journals: An alternative metric to measure journal impact in economics and business," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(1), pages 41-46, January.
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    1. Aistleitner, Matthias & Kapeller, Jakob & Kronberger, Dominik, 2023. "The authors of economics journals revisited: evidence from a large-scale replication of Hodgson and Rothman (1999)," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 19(1), pages 86-101, February.
    2. Aistleitner, Matthias & Kapeller, Jakob & Kronberger, Dominik, 2022. "The authors of economics journals revisited: Evidence from a large-scale replication of Hodgson & Rothman (1999)," ifso working paper series 20, University of Duisburg-Essen, Institute for Socioeconomics (ifso).
    3. Lina M. Cortés & Andrés Mora-Valencia & Javier Perote, 2016. "The productivity of top researchers: a semi-nonparametric approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 891-915, November.
    4. Buehling, Kilian, 2021. "Changing research topic trends as an effect of publication rankings – The case of German economists and the Handelsblatt Ranking," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(3).
    5. Daniel Birkmaier & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2014. "Der Matthäus-Effekt in der Ökonomie," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 67(17), pages 38-42, September.
    6. Klaus Wohlrabe & Constantin Bürgi, 2021. "Do working papers increase journal citations? Evidence from the top 5 journals in economics," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 28(17), pages 1531-1535, October.
    7. Мarina V. Vasiljeva & Gennady V. Osipov & Vadim V. Ponkratov & Vitali Ju. Ivlev & Marina I. Ivleva & Svetlana G. Karepova & Zhanna R. Gardanova & Olesya V. Dudnik, 2021. "Factors to Improve Publication Productivity in Russian Universities," Publications, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-22, May.
    8. Alexander Butz & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2016. "Anmerkungen und Kritik zu den Ökonomen-Rankings 2015 von Handelsblatt, FAZ und RePEc," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 69(10), pages 37-44, May.
    9. Molly E Contini & Jeffrey R Spence, 2023. "And the award goes to…the Matthew Effect: Examining external status as a predictor of productivity and opportunity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 18(10), pages 1-25, October.
    10. Jayaraman, Aishwarya & Rajan, Sudhir Chella & Ramu, Palaniappan, 2024. "Food system resilience: Unraveling power relations and the Matthew effect in farmers networks," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    11. Tom Coupé & Thomas Logchies & W. Robert Reed, 2025. "Do replications receive fewer citations? A counterfactual approach," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 130(4), pages 2403-2423, April.
    12. Migheli, Matteo & Zotti, Roberto, 2020. "The strange case of the Matthew effect and beauty contests: Research evaluation and specialisation in Italian universities," Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    13. Alexander Butz & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2016. "Die Ökonomen-Rankings 2015 von Handelsblatt, FAZ und RePEc: Methodik, Ergebnisse, Kritik und Vergleich," ifo Working Paper Series 212, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich.
    14. Haucap, Justus & Thomas, Tobias & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2017. "Publication performance vs. influence: On the questionable value of quality weighted publication rankings," DICE Discussion Papers 277, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf Institute for Competition Economics (DICE).
    15. Rodrigo Dorantes-Gilardi & Aurora A. Ramírez-Álvarez & Diana Terrazas-Santamaría, 2023. "Is there a differentiated gender effect of collaboration with super-cited authors? Evidence from junior researchers in economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(4), pages 2317-2336, April.
    16. Katchanov, Yurij L. & Markova, Yulia V. & Shmatko, Natalia A., 2023. "Empirical demonstration of the Matthew effect in scientific research careers," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).
    17. Tol, Richard S.J., 2023. "Nobel begets Nobel in economics," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4).

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    JEL classification:

    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics

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