A Citation Analysis of the Impact of Blinded Peer Review

Abstract

To determine whether articles published in journals using blinded peer review receive significantly more or fewer citations than those published in journals using nonblinded peer review. Drawing from a sample of 1051 full articles published in 28 economics journals during 1984, we used nonlinear regression and ordered probit techniques to estimate the impact of blinded peer review on citations of these articles in 1985 through 1989. Citations of articles. Articles published in journals using blinded peer review were cited significantly more than articles published in journals using nonblinded peer review, controlling for a variety of author, article, and journal attributes. Nonblinded peer review apparently suffers from type I error to a greater extent than blinded peer review. That is, journals using nonblinded peer review published a larger fraction of papers that should not have been published than do journals using blinded peer review. When reviewers know the identity of the author(s) of an article, they are able to (and evidently do) substitute particularistic criteria for universalistic criteria in their evaluative process.