Editor home bias?

Abstract

We analyze whether journal editors exhibit home bias in their acceptance decisions towards researchers affiliated with institutions in the editor's home country. Our results show that the fraction of articles accepted by authors affiliated with European civil-law countries increase by 33 % when an editor from the same country serves in the journal. We analyze various possible reasons for this phenomenon and conclude that a likely explanation for the bias is that, in civil-law countries, there is greater emphasis on individuals' solidarity with institutions. We also document that this bias extends to the European Union as a whole. Importantly, articles that are potentially subject to editorial home bias have 10 % lower impact than similar articles. Overall, the findings are consistent with the idea that cultural values potentially foster editorial-biased behavior and hinder scientific progress.