General-interest Journals Research Articles

50 Years of Context Effects: Merging the Behavioral and Quantitative Perspectives

Abstract Over the past 50 years, consumer researchers have presented extensive evidence that consumer preference can be swayed by the decision context, particularly the configuration of the choice set. Importantly, behavioral research on context effects has inspired prominent quantitative research on multialternative decision-making published in leading psychology, management, economics, and general interest journals. While both streams of research seem to agree that context effects are an important research area, there has been relatively limited interaction, communication, and collaboration between the two research camps. In this article, we seek to initiate an active dialogue between the two sides. We begin by providing a critical overview of the two literatures on context effects, discussing both their strengths and weaknesses, as well as disparities and complementarities. Here, we place particular emphasis on deepening consumer researchers’ understanding of context effects by drawing on prominent quantitative research published in non-marketing journals over the last decades. Importantly, we provide a roadmap for the future that can inspire further research and potential collaborations between the two camps, overcoming silos in knowledge creation.

Abstract readability: Evidence from top-5 economics journals

Readability is a measure of how easy it is to read a text. Over time, general-interest journals have become more technical. This affects how accessible research is to a general audience. Our analysis looks at how readable abstracts are. We study the readability of abstracts of top five economics journals between 2000–2019. We collect the characteristics of the abstracts, papers, and authors of these papers. We find that abstracts with higher proportion of women co-authors are more readable. These results are robust to various readability measures and model specifications.

A Historical Portrait of Female Economists' Coauthorship Networks

Abstract This article describes how women have contributed to the research published in influential general interest journals between 1940 and 2019. The share of women published in these journals follows a U-shaped curve that troughs in the late 1970s—a decline possibly related to an increase in the number of papers being published as well as a rise in coauthoring. By the late 1970s and early 1980s, however, the share of women began increasing again, largely thanks to a rise in mixed-gendered papers. Coauthorship between women, on the other hand, was almost nonexistent until around 2010. A decade-by-decade comparison of men's and women's coauthorship networks suggests female-female networks in the most recent decade in our data (2010–19) roughly resemble male networks from earlier decades (1940–69) and highlight the key role prominent individuals play in network formation. We hypothesize that the recent growth in papers by female teams may signal that research by women collaborating with other women is receiving greater recognition in the field.

Mapping the corporate governance scholarship: Current state and future directions

AbstractResearch Question/IssuesWe conduct a comprehensive analysis of all scholarly publications in the field of corporate governance (CG) since the Enron scandal of 2001. Using bibliometric methods, we identify prominent themes that have served as the foundation of CG research, prominent topics in the field along with their temporal developments, and recent trends in CG research. In addition, we identify the authors and journals that have had the biggest impact in the field.Research Findings/InsightsWe document that the number of annual publications in CG has increased by a factor of eight since the early 2000s, with research articles being published in a wide variety of general interest journals, as well as in outlets specialized in the field of CG. We identify six research themes as the foundation of CG research: the theoretical foundations of CG, ownership, CG mechanisms and firm outcomes, disclosures, the board of directors, and family firms. We further find 19 major bibliographic keyword clusters that have been explored by researchers in the past 20 years. Research on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and sustainability, governance mechanisms, control mechanisms and disclosures, board diversity, CG in family firms, and CG in the Chinese context are the most dynamic areas of research in recent years.Theoretical/Academic ImplicationsWe systematically analyze the literature on CG and outline theoretical foundations, structuring academic contributions by keyword clusters. Links between keyword clusters as well as the most dynamic research areas are identified. The analysis provides guidance for researchers regarding suitable outlets for the different thematic clusters and helps as a basis to identify research opportunities.Practitioner/Policy ImplicationsWe document growing research interest in the field of CSR and sustainability. The growing body of literature in these areas can inform CG and CSR policies in the future. Our comprehensive bibliographic analysis provides an overview of CG research themes across research disciplines and streams of the literature.

The effects of person‐specific, task, and environmental factors on digital transformation and innovation in auditing: A review of the literature

AbstractThis study reviews literature examining digital transformation in the external audit setting. Our review will inform the standard‐setting initiatives of the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board (IAASB) related to the use of technology in auditing. We identified 36 articles on digital transformation in the external audit published between 2000 and 2021 across 20 journals ranked A*, A, B, and C on the Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) 2021 Journal Quality List. We also identified 18 advanced working papers. These articles cover conceptual frameworks and archival, experimental, interviews, case studies, and survey research methods. Fifty percent of the published articles appear in A* or A journals, of which nine were published in one of the premier six accounting research journals (i.e., A*) since 2020. This trend is a promising sign that there appears to be increasing interest in publishing digital transformation‐related research in these general interest journals. We use the Bonner judgment and decision‐making framework, coupled with the four primary data analytic tools, to organize and evaluate the literature. This study examines descriptive and diagnostic analytics; more complex techniques, such as predictive and prescriptive, are not as prevalent. Further, existing research insufficiently addresses how data analytic tools impact auditor judgment and decision‐making, providing multiple future inquiry lines.

Methods Used in Economic Research: An Empirical Study of Trends and Levels

Abstract The methods used in economic research are analyzed on a sample of all 3,415 regular research papers published in 10 general interest journals every 5th year from 1997 to 2017. The papers are classified into three main groups by method: theory, experiments, and empirics. The theory and empirics groups are almost equally large. Most empiric papers use the classical method, which derives an operational model from theory and runs regressions. The number of papers published increases by 3.3% p.a. Two trends are highly significant: The fraction of theoretical papers has fallen by 26 pp (percentage points), while the fraction of papers using the classical method has increased by 15 pp. Economic theory predicts that such papers exaggerate, and the papers that have been analyzed by meta-analysis confirm the prediction. It is discussed if other methods have smaller problems.

Nonreplicable publications are cited more than replicable ones.

We use publicly available data to show that published papers in top psychology, economics, and general interest journals that fail to replicate are cited more than those that replicate. This difference in citation does not change after the publication of the failure to replicate. Only 12% of postreplication citations of nonreplicable findings acknowledge the replication failure. Existing evidence also shows that experts predict well which papers will be replicated. Given this prediction, why are nonreplicable papers accepted for publication in the first place? A possible answer is that the review team faces a trade-off. When the results are more "interesting," they apply lower standards regarding their reproducibility.

Historical Econometrics: Instrumental Variables and Regression Discontinuity Designs

This chapter surveys the usage of Instrumental Variables (IVs) and Regression Discontinuity Designs (RDDs) in economic history. I document the positive trends of economic history articles employing these methods using three different samples: top 20 journals in economics, top 5 journals in economic history and top five general interest journals in economics from 2000-2020. I detail two broad phases: seminal articles published from 2001 to 2011, and a second wave of studies refining these techniques appearing from 2012 to today (2020). I discuss some methodological refinements that have appeared recently in the econometrics field-in the IV and RDD fronts. I then present a practical guide on regression diagnostics, acknowledging that there are other useful sources of identification available to tackle potential endogeneity issues.

Friends in Close Places: Social Ties in Economic Education Research

This article examines whether the author–editor social connections identified by Tommaso Colussi among general-interest economic journals offer similar benefits to contributors to three top economic education field journals. I find that 6.7% to 8.7% of articles in these journals are written by connected authors and published when the related editor is in charge. Authors who are or were employed at the same institution as an editor are found to have published significantly more papers in the journal where said editor is in charge. Authors connected to editors through co-authorship and overall connections achieve similarly positive results when using expanded parameters for social connections. JEL Classifications: A14, A20

Proximate Causation in Legal HIstoriography

The variety of legal history published in general-interest law journals tends to differ from the variety published in history journals. This study compares the two varieties by examining footnote references in five general-interest law journals, and footnote references in two journals of legal history. In the law journals, cases and statutes accounted for the single largest group of footnotes (approximately 35%), followed by references to other law journal articles (nearly 25%). In the legal history journals, these two categories accounted for less than 20% of all references; primary and secondary historical materials predominated in the footnotes. To be sure, legal decisions and law journal articles can also be historical sources: rather than being used as evidence of what the law is, they might be studied for what they reveal about legal reasoning or rhetoric in an earlier age. However, in most legal historical research that attends primarily to cases and statutes, these materials figure as evidence of the state of the law at that time. When the analysis relies on legal sources to trace the development of a certain doctrine, and treats them as sufficient to account for that development, the result is the distinctive style of research that I seek to contrast against approaches that cast the net of historical inquiry more widely. To account for these different approaches, I suggest that law professors rely on a notion of proximate causation as a historiographic method. According to this approach, legal developments are proximately caused by other developments in the legal sphere, and other social and cultural developments play a more attenuated role, such that their influence is less significant. By proposing this explanation, I hope to draw more attention to assumptions about causation in legal historiography, and to question their persuasive force.

The production economics of economics production

AbstractHow is new economic knowledge produced over time? That depends on how the expertise of authors is managed within economic journals. Using data from 41 major economics journals spanning 21 years (1994–2014), we find that both the intensive margin (article length) and extensive margin (article number) of the discipline have been growing. In particular, the extensive margin has outgrown the intensive margin, such that each article produces absolutely more but relatively less knowledge. This pattern is highly consistent with a model of within‐journal specialization. As predicted by the model, the share of an individual article shrinks less in general interest journals and in more prestigious journals, where expertise is less substitutable across topics.

Благополучие аспирантов: обзор исследований и практик

Изучение благополучия в образовании и профессии стало одним из самых актуальных и популярных направлений исследований. Статьи, посвященные различным аспектам благополучия аспирантов, выходят в ведущих журналах по тематике образования и общенаучных изданиях, а университеты разрабатывают программы по формированию благоприятной среды. Благополучие аспирантов рассматривается как залог благополучия во всей академической среде. Однако в России эта тема только набирает популярность. В данной статье автор предлагает обзор проведенных исследований по теме благополучия аспирантов. Представленные варианты определения и способы измерения благополучия, а также описание и анализ основных факторов, которые вносят положительный или негативный вклад в оценку аспирантами своего благополучия, могут быть использованы для формировании исследовательской повестки, а также для соответствующих интервенций с учетом потребностей аспирантов. Благодарность. Публикация подготовлена в рамках поддержанного Российским фондом фундаментальных исследований (РФФИ) научного проекта № 19-113-50238.

Publication integrity in orthopaedic journals: the self-citation in orthopaedic research (SCOR) threshold.

The impact factor (IF) is the most commonly used bibliometric method for rating academic journals. However, the practice of journals' self-citation may artificially elevate the IF. Additional bibliometric methods including Eigenfactor scale, SCImago Journal Ranking (SJR), and corrected IF (cIF) have been created. Comparing general-interest and specialized orthopaedic journals, the aims of this study were to assess: (1) the effect of journal´s self-citation on IF; (2) differences in bibliometric analysis; and (3) to determine thresholds for monitoring self-citation practices by defining the self-citation in orthopaedic research (SCOR) Threshold. The journal citation reports and SCImago Journal and Country Rank databases were queried for orthopaedic journals from 1997 to 2017. The following bibliometrics were compared between general-interest and specialized journals: IF, cIF, Eigenfactor, self-citation rates, and SJR. A novel metric, the cIF ratio, was proposed to represent the relationship between a journal's IF and cIF. Thresholds for cIF were based on statistical outliers of cIF ratio within general-interest and specialized journals were calculated. Outliers were defined as data points that were greater than the third quartile by 1.5 times the interquartile range using the last 10years studied (2007-2017). Specialized orthopaedic journals had a higher median self-citation rates compared to general-interest journals (11.85% vs. 6.36%, p < 0.001). Overall, cIF ratio declined over study period, and general-interest journals had a lower cIF ratio than specialized journals (8.77% vs. 19.54%, p < 0.001). Overall, general-interest journals had more favourable values for the bibliometric indices studied compared to specialized journals The SCOR threshold for cIF ratio was determined as 25.4% for general-interest journals and 53.3% for specialized journals. Overall, self-citation occurs at a higher rate in specialized versus general-interest orthopaedic journals. We propose the use of a cIF ratio along with the SCOR threshold as a tool to evaluate and monitor journal self-citation practices in orthopaedic research.

Which leading journal leads? Idea diffusion in economics research journals

Do general interest journals set the trends in research attention to particular topics, or is it field journals that have greater initial influence? In this paper, we focus on the subfield of environmental economics and attempt to empirically identify whether it has been the leading general interest journals or the top environmental economics field journal that has set the research trends on climate change, air pollution, water pollution, and other topics. We use textual analysis and Granger causality tests to investigate the question of which journals lead in publication of papers related to these topics in environmental economics. Our results indicate that leadership depends on the topic; however, there is some evidence that the top field journal in environmental economics generally took the lead in more controversial topics.

Leadership in Scholarship: A Machine Learning Based Investigation of Editors' Influence on Textual Structure

Academic journals disseminate new knowledge, and therefore can influence the direction and composition of ongoing research by choosing what to publish. We study the change in the topic structure of papers published in the American Economic Review (AER) after the appointments of editors and coeditors of the AER between 1985 and 2011 using a textual analysis of accepted publications. We compare AER's topic structure to that of the other top general interest journals. The appointment of new AER editors, while accompanied by a minor co-movement of AER topics towards topics of editors' post-appointment publications, is not an indicator of editors' personal taste in topics, but rather indicates the desire of those who appoint editors to premediate trends in other Top 5 journals.

Which Leading Journal Leads? Idea Diffusion in Economics Research Journals

Do general interest journals set the trends in research attention to particular topics, or is it field journals that have greater initial influence? In this paper, we focus on the subfield of environmental economics and attempt to empirically identify whether it has been the leading general interest journals or the top environmental economics field journal that has set the research trends on climate change, air pollution, water pollution, and other topics. We use textual analysis and Granger causality tests to investigate the question of which journals lead in publication of papers related to these topics in environmental economics. Our results indicate that leadership depends on the topic; however, there is some evidence that the top field journal in environmental economics generally took the lead in more controversial topics.

Replications in Development Economics

I examine replications of empirical papers in development economics published in the top-5 and next-5 general interest journals between the years 2000 through 2015. Of the 1,138 empirical papers, 71 papers (6.2 percent) were replicated in another published paper or working paper. The majority (77.5 percent) of replications involved reanalysis of the data using different econometric specifications to assess robustness. The strongest predictor of whether a paper is replicated or not is the paper's Google Scholar citation count, followed by year of publication. Papers based on randomized control trials (RCTs) appear to be replicated at a higher rate (12.5 percent).

Social Ties in Academia: A Friend Is a Treasure

This paper employs a unique data set on articles, authors, and editors of the top general interest journals in economics to investigate the role of social connections in the publication process. Ties between editors and authors are identified based on their academic histories. About 43% of the articles published in these journals are authored by scholars connected to one editor at the time of the publication. Ph.D. students and faculty colleagues of an editor also improve their publication outcomes when this editor is in charge of a journal.

A SURVEY OF JEL CODES: WHAT DO THEY MEAN AND ARE THEY USED CONSISTENTLY?

AbstractThe use and prevalence of JEL code categorization is wide in the field of economics, but what do JEL code classifications actually tell us? And are they used with consistency by academics in the field? Utilizing a data set of articles published in the American Economic Review from 1990 to 2008, we investigate whether there is heterogeneity in JEL codes assignments between authors and editors. We find that there is. A secondary goal of this paper is to survey overall thematic trends in JEL code usage over the past four and a half decades. One result is that JEL category M: Business Economics, in particular, appears to be thematically and spatially distinct from much of the rest of the published literature in the top general interest journals in the field.

Inventing Perspectives: New York’s Skyscrapers in the French Illustrated Press (1898–1912)

In the first decade of the 20th century, French illustrated news journals — and especially L’Illustration — published articles on the skyscrapers of New York. Through the diachronic analysis of word-image relations at work in these journals, this article reveals how the publishing of this new building type — within an equally new cityscape — moved within a single decade towards new forms that were the product of inverted hierarchies between the written and the graphic. The spectacular double-page photographs taken with an unusual viewing axis gave the clearest expression of it. These photographs, preceding those famously taken by Alvin Coburn, were a means developed by the journal editors to convey strong sensations to its readership. With this evolution towards architecture as sensational news in which the reader became the protagonist, the general-interest journals offered a completely different approach visually compared to the conventional way architecture journals published the same skyscrapers. This episode in publishing New York buildings represented the beginning of an important rift between the general public’s and the architectural expert’s ways of perceiving and experiencing architecture and the city.