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Rising Stars

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Listed:
  • Erich Battistin
  • Marco Ovidi

    (Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
    Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore)

Abstract

We use the UK’s 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF) to study the attributes of top-scoring (four-star) publications in Economics and Econometrics. Although official documents contain aggregate scores for each institution, we show how these aggregates can be used to infer the score awarded by REF panellists to each publication. We demonstrate that this score responds to journal prestige as measured by the Thomson Reuters Article Influence Score. Several econometric analyses confirm the limited contribution of other publication attributes, such as the citation counts, to the awarded score, and publications in the top generalist and top-five economics journals are unambiguously awarded four stars. We conclude that in large-scale evaluations such as the REF, peer reviews and bibliometrics should be viewed as complementary modes of assessment: the time-consuming task of peer reviews would be more costeffective if targeted to publications whose quality cannot be unambiguously classified using bibliometrics.

Suggested Citation

  • Erich Battistin & Marco Ovidi, 2021. "Rising Stars," DISCE - Working Papers del Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza def106, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Dipartimenti e Istituti di Scienze Economiche (DISCE).
    • Handle: RePEc:ctc:serie1:def106
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Education Policy; Higher Education; Journal Ranking; Research Funding.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H52 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Education
    • H83 - Public Economics - - Miscellaneous Issues - - - Public Administration
    • I23 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Higher Education; Research Institutions
    • I28 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Education - - - Government Policy

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