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How To Count Citations If You Must

Author

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  • Perry, Motty

    (Department of Economics, University of Warwick)

  • Reny, Philip J.

    (Department of Economics, University of Chicago)

Abstract

Citation indices are regularly used to inform critical decisions about promotion, tenure, and the allocation of billions of research dollars. Nevertheless, most indices (e.g., the h-index) are motivated by intuition and rules of thumb, resulting in undesirable conclusions. In contrast, five natural properties lead us to a unique new index, the Euclidean index, that avoids several shortcomings of the h-index and its successors.The Euclidean index is simply the Euclidean length of an individual’s citation list. Two empirical tests suggest that the Euclidean index outperforms the h-index in practice.

Suggested Citation

  • Perry, Motty & Reny, Philip J., 2015. "How To Count Citations If You Must," CRETA Online Discussion Paper Series 08, Centre for Research in Economic Theory and its Applications CRETA.
    • Handle: RePEc:wrk:wcreta:08
    as

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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation

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