IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/knz/dpteco/1137.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

How Do Editors Select Papers, and How Good are They at Doing It?

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Hofmeister

    () (Department of Economics, University of Konstanz, Germany)

  • Matthias Krapf

    () (Department of Business Administration, University Wien, Austria)

Abstract

Using data on the B.E. Journals that rank articles into four quality tiers, this paper examines the accuracy of the research evaluation process in economics. We find that submissions by authors with strong publication records and authors affiliated with highly-ranked institutions are significantly more likely to be published in higher tiers. Citation success as measured by RePEc statistics also depends heavily on the overall research records of the authors. Finally and most importantly, we measure how successful the B.E. Journals’ editors and their reviewers have been at assigning articles to quality tiers. While, on average, they are able to distinguish more influential from less influential manuscripts, we also observe many assignments that are not compatible with the belief that research quality is reflected by the number of citations.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Hofmeister & Matthias Krapf, 2011. "How Do Editors Select Papers, and How Good are They at Doing It?," Working Paper Series of the Department of Economics, University of Konstanz 2011-37, Department of Economics, University of Konstanz.
    • Handle: RePEc:knz:dpteco:1137
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.uni-konstanz.de/FuF/wiwi/workingpaperseries/WP_37-Hofmeister-Krapf-11.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Zimmermann, 2013. "Academic Rankings with RePEc," Econometrics, MDPI, Open Access Journal, vol. 1(3), pages 1-32, December.
    2. Benjamin F. Jones, 2009. "The Burden of Knowledge and the "Death of the Renaissance Man": Is Innovation Getting Harder?," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 76(1), pages 283-317.
    3. David N. Laband & Robert D. Tollison, 2000. "Intellectual Collaboration," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 108(3), pages 632-661, June.
    4. David N. Laband & Robert D. Tollison, 2003. "Dry Holes in Economic Research," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 161-173, May.
    5. Wall Howard J, 2009. "Don't Get Skewed Over by Journal Rankings," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 9(1), pages 1-12, August.
    6. Daniel S. Hamermesh, 1994. "Facts and Myths about Refereeing," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 153-163, Winter.
    7. Coupé, Tom, 2013. "Peer review versus citations – An analysis of best paper prizes," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 295-301.
    8. De Long, J Bradford & Lang, Kevin, 1992. "Are All Economic Hypotheses False?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 100(6), pages 1257-1272, December.
    9. J. M. C. Santos Silva & Silvana Tenreyro, 2006. "The Log of Gravity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(4), pages 641-658, November.
    10. Hamermesh, Daniel S. & Pfann, Gerard A., 2009. "Markets for Reputation: Evidence on Quality and Quantity in Academe," IZA Discussion Papers 4610, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA).
    11. Joshua S. Gans & George B. Shepherd, 1994. "How Are the Mighty Fallen: Rejected Classic Articles by Leading Economists," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 8(1), pages 165-179, Winter.
    12. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Peter Schmidt, 2003. "The Determinants of Econometric Society Fellows Elections," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 71(1), pages 399-407, January.
    13. Gourieroux, Christian & Monfort, Alain & Trognon, Alain, 1984. "Pseudo Maximum Likelihood Methods: Applications to Poisson Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(3), pages 701-720, May.
    14. Alice Vandermeulen, 1972. "Manuscripts in the maelstrom: A theory of the editorial process," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 107-111, September.
    15. repec:jns:jbstat:v:227:y:2007:i:2:p:187-208 is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Kenneth J. Arrow & B. Douglas Bernheim & Martin S. Feldstein & Daniel L. McFadden & James M. Poterba & Robert M. Solow, 2011. "100 Years of the American Economic Review : The Top 20 Articles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 101(1), pages 1-8, February.
    17. Laband, David N & Piette, Michael J, 1994. "Favoritism versus Search for Good Papers: Empirical Evidence Regarding the Behavior of Journal Editors," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 102(1), pages 194-203, February.
    18. Ursprung Heinrich W. & Zimmer Markus, 2007. "Who is the ”Platz-Hirsch“ of the German Economics Profession?: A Citation Analysis," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 227(2), pages 187-208, April.
    19. Daniel S. Hamermesh & Gerard A. Pfann, 2012. "Reputation And Earnings: The Roles Of Quality And Quantity In Academe," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(1), pages 1-16, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. KRAPF, Matthias & SCHLÄPFER, Jörg, 2012. "How Nobel Laureates Would Perform In The Handelsblatt Ranking," Regional and Sectoral Economic Studies, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 12(3).
    2. David Card & Stefano DellaVigna, 2017. "What do Editors Maximize? Evidence from Four Leading Economics Journals," NBER Working Papers 23282, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Besancenot Damien & Faria João R. & Huynh Kim V., 2014. "Congestion of Academic Journals Under Papers’ Imperfect Selection," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 14(3), pages 1145-1167, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Peer Review; Research Evaluation; Citations; Journal Quality;

    JEL classification:

    • A10 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - General
    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics

    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:knz:dpteco:1137. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Office Ursprung) or (Rebekah McClure). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/fwkonde.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.