Abstract
The paper focuses on the robustness of rankings of academic journal quality and research impact of 10 leading econometrics journals taken from the Thomson Reuters ISI Web of Science (ISI) Category of Economics, using citations data from ISI and the highly accessible Research Papers in Economics (RePEc) database that is widely used in economics, finance and related disciplines. The journals are ranked using quantifiable static and dynamic Research Assessment Measures (RAMs), with 15 RAMs from ISI and five RAMs from RePEc. The similarities and differences in various RAMs, which are based on alternative weighted and unweighted transformations of citations, are highlighted to show which RAMs are able to provide informational value relative to others. The RAMs include the impact factor, mean citations and non-citations, journal policy, number of high quality papers, and journal influence and article influence. The paper highlights robust rankings based on the harmonic mean of the ranks of 20 RAMs, which in some cases are closely related. It is shown that emphasizing the most widely-used RAM, the two-year impact factor of a journal, can lead to a distorted evaluation of journal quality, impact and influence relative to the harmonic mean of the ranks. Some suggestions regarding the use of the most informative RAMs are also given.
Highlights
It is an unavoidable fact of academic life that the actual and/or perceived research performance of scholars is important in hiring, tenure and promotion decisions
Such perceived quality of academic journals is routinely based on both testable and untestable assessments of journal impact and influence, the number of high quality papers, and quantitative or qualitative information about a journal, as well as quantifiable bibliometric Research Assessment Measures (RAMs) that are based on citations
This paper examines the importance of RAMs as viable rankings criteria in 10 leading econometrics journals from the ISI category of Economics, and suggests a robust rankings method of alternative
Summary
It is an unavoidable fact of academic life that the actual and/or perceived research performance of scholars is important in hiring, tenure and promotion decisions. Where a paper is published is frequently regarded as being of greater importance than the quality of the paper itself which, among other reasons, leads to rankings of a journal’s perceived quality Such perceived quality of academic journals is routinely based on both testable and untestable assessments of journal impact and influence, the number of high quality papers, and quantitative or qualitative information about a journal, as well as quantifiable bibliometric Research Assessment Measures (RAMs) that are based on citations. As the alternative RAMs that are provided in ISI and in several recent publications may not be widely known, this section provides a brief description and definition of 15 RAMs using ISI data that may be calculated annually or updated daily
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