IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/77782.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Standing on the shoulder of giants: The aspect of free-riding in RePEc rankings

Author

Listed:
  • Wohlrabe, Klaus
  • Meyer, Justus

Abstract

RePEc rankings have become a well-established source of information about actual and perceived academic performance of institutions, academic fields and their authors. One essential ingredient are the impact factors calculated in RePEc which differ from the standard ones. RePEc reports the ratio of the cumulative citations of all articles of a journal and the number of listed items. The continuously updated RePEc impact factors account for the whole journal and citation history. This approach give rise to a potential free-riding of authors who profit from journal ranking established in the past. In this paper we demonstrate how the rankings of economists change if one calculates yearly impact factors. The distribution of gains and losses is most pronounced among middle-field ranked authors while the top group shows relative persistence.

Suggested Citation

  • Wohlrabe, Klaus & Meyer, Justus, 2017. "Standing on the shoulder of giants: The aspect of free-riding in RePEc rankings," MPRA Paper 77782, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:77782
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/77782/1/MPRA_paper_77782.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Katharina Rath & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2016. "Trends in economics publications represented by JEL categories between 2007 and 2013," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(9), pages 660-663, June.
    2. Benjamin M. Althouse & Jevin D. West & Carl T. Bergstrom & Theodore Bergstrom, 2009. "Differences in impact factor across fields and over time," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(1), pages 27-34, January.
    3. Katharina Rath & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2016. "Recent trends in co-authorship in economics: evidence from RePEc," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(12), pages 897-902, August.
    4. Wolfgang Glänzel & Henk F. Moed, 2002. "Journal impact measures in bibliometric research," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 53(2), pages 171-193, February.
    5. Anton J. Nederhof, 2006. "Bibliometric monitoring of research performance in the Social Sciences and the Humanities: A Review," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 66(1), pages 81-100, January.
    6. Christian Zimmermann, 2013. "Academic Rankings with RePEc," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 1(3), pages 1-32, December.
    7. Vera Sommer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2017. "Citations, journal ranking and multiple authorships reconsidered: evidence from almost one million articles," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(11), pages 809-814, June.
    8. Glenn Ellison, 2002. "The Slowdown of the Economics Publishing Process," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(5), pages 947-993, October.
    9. Seiler, Christian & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2014. "How robust are journal rankings based on the impact factor? Evidence from the economic sciences," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 8(4), pages 904-911.
    10. Philip Hans Franses, 2014. "Trends in three decades of rankings of Dutch economists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 98(2), pages 1257-1268, February.
    11. Pedro Cosme Costa Vieira, 2004. "Statistical variability of top ranking economics journals impact," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 11(15), pages 945-948.
    12. Liebowitz, S J & Palmer, J P, 1984. "Assessing the Relative Impacts of Economic Journals," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 22(1), pages 77-88, March.
    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. Sabine Gralka & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2022. "Classifying top economists using archetypoid analysis," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(14), pages 1342-1346, August.
    2. Klaus Gründler & Niklas Potrafke, 2019. "Ideologically-charged terminology: austerity, fiscal consolidation, and sustainable governance," CESifo Working Paper Series 7613, CESifo.

    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. Lutz Bornmann & Alexander Butz & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2018. "What are the top five journals in economics? A new meta-ranking," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 50(6), pages 659-675, February.
    2. 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.
    3. Vera Sommer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2017. "Citations, journal ranking and multiple authorships reconsidered: evidence from almost one million articles," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 24(11), pages 809-814, June.
    4. Spiegel, Yossi & Toivanen, Otto, 2022. "From conference submission to publication and citations: Evidence from the EARIE conference," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    5. Klaus Wohlrabe & Constantin Bürgi, 2021. "What is the benefit from publishing a working paper in a journal in terms of citations? Evidence from economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(6), pages 4701-4714, June.
    6. Constantin Bürgi & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2022. "The influence of Covid-19 on publications in economics: bibliometric evidence from five working paper series," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(9), pages 5175-5189, September.
    7. Klaus Wohlrabe & Lutz Bornmann, 2022. "Alphabetized co-authorship in economics reconsidered," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(5), pages 2173-2193, May.
    8. Jenny Bourne & Nathan Grawe & Nathan D. Grawe & Michael Hemesath & Maya Jensen, 2022. "Scholarly Activity among Economists at Liberal Arts Colleges: A Life Cycle Analysis," Working Papers 2022-01, Carleton College, Department of Economics.
    9. María Victoria Anauati & Sebastian Galiani & Ramiro H. Gálvez, 2020. "Differences In Citation Patterns Across Journal Tiers: The Case Of Economics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 58(3), pages 1217-1232, July.
    10. Sabine Gralka & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2022. "Classifying top economists using archetypoid analysis," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(14), pages 1342-1346, August.
    11. Alexandra Baumann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2020. "Where have all the working papers gone? Evidence from four major economics working paper series," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(3), pages 2433-2441, September.
    12. Lutz Bornmann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2019. "Normalisation of citation impact in economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 841-884, August.
    13. Sánchez-Gil, Susana & Gorraiz, Juan & Melero-Fuentes, David, 2018. "Reference density trends in the major disciplines," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 12(1), pages 42-58.
    14. María Victoria Anauati & Sebastian Galiani & Ramiro H. Gálvez, 2018. "Differences in citation patterns across journal tiers in economics," Documentos de Trabajo 16701, The Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA).
    15. Ignacio Palacios-Huerta & Oscar Volij, 2004. "The Measurement of Intellectual Influence," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 72(3), pages 963-977, May.
    16. Justus Haucap & Johannes Muck, 2015. "What drives the relevance and reputation of economics journals? An update from a survey among economists," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 103(3), pages 849-877, June.
    17. Matthias Aistleitner & Jakob Kapeller & Stefan Steinerberger, 2018. "Citation Patterns in Economics and Beyond," Working Papers Series 85, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    18. Jerome K. Vanclay, 2012. "Impact factor: outdated artefact or stepping-stone to journal certification?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 92(2), pages 211-238, August.
    19. Önder Ali Sina & Yilmazkuday Hakan, 2020. "Thirty-Five Years of Peer-Reviewed Publishing by North American Economics PhDs: Quantity, Quality, and Beyond," Open Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 3(1), pages 70-85, January.
    20. Syed Hasan & Robert Breunig, 2021. "Article length and citation outcomes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7583-7608, September.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    impact factors; rankings; free-riding; RePEc;
    All these keywords.

    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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Papers using RePEc data

    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:pra:mprapa:77782. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    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.