Ranking Economics Journals,Economics Departments,and Economists Using Teaching-Focused Research Productivity

This paper constructs new rankings of economics journals, economics departments, and economists that employ a measure of teaching-focused research productivity, an area of growing importance in recent years. The ranking methodologies presented here use information from articles that were published from 1991 through the early part of 2005 within the Journal of Economic Literature's “economic education” classifications (A200-A290). The Journal of Economic Literature tops the list of journals, followed by the Review of Economics and Statistics and the American Economic Review. Among the top institutions are Vanderbilt University, Indiana University, and the University of Wisconsin. Others that rank high here, such as Oberlin College and Denison University, do not often fare as well using methodologies that evaluate more traditional types of economics research. Finally, among the economists we find that John Siegfried, William Becker, and Michael Watts are ranked above other economists.     

A Guide to Graduate Study in Economics: Ranking Economics Departments by Fields of Expertise

Ph.D. programs in economics are ranked overall and by subject field. The results provide insight to students researching graduate programs in economics in specific subject fields. Results indicate that (i) differences in overall research productivity measures diminish as a university's rank declines; (ii) a university ranked highly in a particular subject field may be the result of a single, extremely productive faculty member; and (iii) many programs outside the traditional top 20 programs are ranked high in specific subject fields.     

Ranking U.S. Economics Programs by Faculty and Graduate Publications: An Update Using 1994–2009 Data

This article ranks academic institutions by pages published in top economics journals over the 1994–2001 and 2002–2009 periods. Because it uses a methodology similar to several earlier articles, this article permits a consideration of how institutions' ranks have changed over the past 35 years. I construct rankings based on publications by individuals affiliated with each institution, by faculty members in the economics departments at each institution, and by alumni of each doctoral program. With few exceptions, the positions of programs near the top of the rankings change little over time. However, much more dramatic changes in rank occur for lower‐ranked institutions.     

EVALUATING THE PERFORMANCE OF SOUTH AFRICAN ECONOMICS DEPARTMENTS

Over the past decade, economics departments in South Africa have seen major changes and a certain level of disruption. Much of this can be attributed to the integration of our discipline into the global arena after a period of academic isolation. This paper presents a survey of economics departments and covers everything from staff profiles and qualifications to curricula, and research output. This paper indicates that there has been some improvement in the state of economics at South African universities since 2003 when the previous survey was conducted. Research output is largely up as is the proportion in international journals, and more researchers are producing in leading international economics publications. However, the gap between South African economics departments and their international counterparts remains large.     

Core authors and rankings in economics

This study ranks contributors to the economics profession using the textbook citation method. A survey of professors in 35 top-tier departments of economics produced a list of the most often used graduate-level microeconomics, macroeconomics, and econometrics texts. The textbooks identified from the survey are evaluated in this study for citations to journal articles. Authors of journal articles cited in textbooks are ranked according to the number of times their works are cited in textbooks. The results are compared to the findings of recent studies using different methods. Different methodologies are found to produce significantly different results.     

Visualising defence and war in economic history journals (1989–2018)

ABSTRACT

Economics usually takes for granted a peaceful world with peaceful market transactions, where war and conflict are anomalies to the current state of business life. However, as History shows violence is a pervasive phenomenon. How is the current state of the art of research on war and defence in economic history journals? This paper provides an overview of research published on this topic by a selection of economic history journals since the fall of Berlin wall. By means of bibliometric and cluster analysis, and using visualising analytical tools, we show the production, main topics, authors, sources, etc. on this research area, and compare with the treatment received in economic journals. The main findings are that publications in economic history journals have increased in the last decades; cover a list of themes broader than that in economic journals; give an increasing importance to quantitative techniques; cite sources from the same area as well as from the top economic journals; and show a relative lack of appeal to neighbouring disciplines. Although economics and economic history influence each other, the direction of the scientific knowledge is going mostly from economics towards economic history rather than the opposite.     

Valuing Tullock's Rejects: The Reception of His Work in Rent Seeking

Gordon Tullock's work in economics spans nearly 50 years and is known for the breadth, originality, and quantity of his contributions in public choice, constitutional political economy, law and economics, bioeconomics, and monetary history. Despite his lack of formal training in economics, Tullock published in major economic journals early in his career. A number of his papers, which proved to be seminal to the theory of rent seeking, were rejected by top economic journals. This paper explores possible reasons for the editor's reception to Tullock's work and uses citation counts to value Tullock's rejected papers. My paper shows that Tullock's work continues to be cited, often far more frequently than the papers which journals chose to publish when they rejected Tullock's submissions.     

Why organizations matter: A journey away from the fairy tale

This paper contends that a major breakthrough has occurred in economics, that this breakthrough is related to the matching of economics and organization theory, and that this breakthrough is already remodeling our understanding of how economic systems work. Section I comes back to the problem of the existence of organizations and to its generalization through the concept of "governance" structures. Section II develops the explanation provided by transaction cost economics of the trade-off among these structures. Section III compares recent contributions of agency theory and of transaction cost economics to the analysis of the structuring mechanism of formal organizations. Section IV explores some properties of the government of organizations. Section V argues that what precedes may have major consequences on public policies and regulations. Distinguished Address presented at the Forty-First International Atlantic Economic Conference, Paris, France, March 12–19, 1996.     

A bibliometric account of Chinese economics research through the lens of the China Economic Review

Very few studies on the assessment and evolution of Chinese economics research draw on quantitative methods, namely bibliometrics. Bibliometrics is a powerful tool that helps to explore, organize and analyze large amounts of information in a quantitative manner. Selecting the most important economic journal focusing on the Chinese economy – the China Economic Review (CER) – we classified and assessed all the (512) articles that have been published in CER from its founding (1989) to December 2010. Based on these articles, and undertaking an exploratory statistical analysis on three databases – a ‘bibliographic’ database (512 articles), a ‘roots’ database (over 10 thousand citations), and an ‘influence’ database (over 3 thousand citations), we concluded that: 1) ‘Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth’; ‘Economic Systems’, and ‘International economics’ are the most important topics for Chinese economics literature; 2) there is a trend in Chinese economics research for growing ‘rigor’, associated to a noticeable rise in the weight of formal/mathematical-based articles; 3) the ‘International economics’ topic does not influence nor is it influenced by Chinese economics literature; and 4) Chinese economics literature is characterized by a certain level of endogamy, given that its range of influence is rather concentrated (geographically) in China and the USA.     

A Description of Predatory Publishing in South African Economics Departments

Predatory publishers charge fees to authors for open access publishing but have limited peer review or other quality controls. In this paper, we use data from five of the most widely used predatory journals used by South African academics in Economic and Management sciences to show that predatory publications are widespread in Economics departments in South African universities. We also critique the Department of Higher Education and Training’s research publication subsidy system and highlight that several journals on the DHET accredited journal list, that South African academic economists publish in, are probable predatory journals. In improving the data on predatory publications in South African Economic and Management Sciences used by de Jager et al (2017), we show that approximately 50% of predatory publications by South African academic economists are authored by professors or associate professors, a finding which corroborates international evidence on predatory publications in Economics. Our paper is also a source of information on the quality of research produced by South African economics departments.     

An updated ranking of the economic research institutions in China (2000–2009)

This paper ranks the economic research institutions in China based on publications in the SSCI economics journals from 2000 through 2009 and finds that the gap in the research capacity of economic research institutions between the mainland and Hong Kong is very large, even though the difference in overall quality is not so significant. This paper can reflect successes and failures of the reform of the economics education in China over the past decade and give important implications for the ongoing reforms as well.     

IDENTIFYING SOME CONSTRAINTS IN FIRST YEAR ECONOMICS TEACHING AND LEARNING AT A TYPICAL SOUTH AFRICAN UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY

This paper examines possible determinants of economics 1 performance at the Riverside campus of the Durban Institute of Technology. The study finds that high school subjects taken, age and gender are not significantly associated with economics achievement. Learner motivation, however, does appear to be associated with economics performance. Specifically, learners may find it difficult to relate meaningfully to the discipline's real content at least partly as a consequence of the philosophical framework within which it is delivered and partly because they do not have the textbook. A well‐designed learner guide and workbook could go some way to demonstrating the relevance of economics and instilling in students more effective learning methods. The result could be a virtuous cycle of improved performance and greater learner motivation.     

国内粤港澳大湾区研究综述——基于CiteSpace的知识图谱分析

粤港澳大湾区作为国家战略,引起众多研究者的关注。本文以CNKI数据库中"粤港澳大湾区"主题的CSSCI和核心期刊论文为样本,运用CiteSpace可视化软件进行文献计量分析。研究结果表明,当前我国在该领域的学者和研究机构主要集中在广东省内;研究学科以经济学为主导;研究热点聚焦于粤港澳大湾区建设的战略和目标、国际湾区建设的经验借鉴、机制协同和制度衔接以及一些重点研究领域。未来在研究内容、研究视角和研究方法等方面仍有很大空间。     

East Asian rankings of economics departments

This paper updates a previous ranking of economics research output in East Asia based upon page counts of articles published in sixty quality journals. A salient feature of the results is that research productivity of economics profession in East Asia has improved substantially since the early 1990s. The research output of top-tier universities in East Asia these days appears comparable to that of major state universities in the United States about a decade ago.     

John M. Virgo: A Career Spent in Service to the Development of the Science and Art of Economics

When John M. Virgo sat at his desk in his office at Virginia Commonwealth University in 1972, it is unlikely that he thought that he would devote his entire career to the development of the International Atlantic Economic Society (IAES), an organization that would publish two journals and hold two conferences dedicated to the development and dissemination of research on and related to the various fields that comprise the science and art of economics.     

A note on educational performance of economics graduate programs in East and Southeast Asia

This paper considers educational performance of economics graduate programs in East and Southeast Asia by examining the highest educational origins of the regional contributors in the top five journals between January 1995 and July 2005. Evidence proves that East and Southeast Asian graduates represent 13% of the contributors, have a 10% share of the regional aggregate AER-equivalent-length pages, and American doctors are dominant. Educational productivity of East and Southeast Asian economics graduate programs is thought to be equal, at best, to that of the middle-ranked ones in the United States top-50 schools.     

中国技术经济研究的动态知识图谱分析

以1992年以来技术经济研究领域的中文文献为研究对象,借助文献计量软件CiteSpace V,对CNKI数据库该领域文献的发表时间、刊载期刊、高产作者与高产机构进行统计分析,并采用共词聚类分析法探讨1992-2016年中国技术经济研究的主要内容和研究专题,进而构建“关注度”指数、“新颖度”指数和战略坐标图,揭示1992-2016年中国技术经济研究专题的分布特征、研究热点与研究方向。结果表明：关于“技术进步与全要素生产率”、“高新技术产业化与政府行为创新”等问题是该领域关注的主要热点,而“产业升级与科技金融支持”、“知识溢出与创新的空间分析”等问题则是该领域较为新颖的研究方向。最后进一步对中国技术经济研究趋势进行了展望。     

The Asymmetric Loss Function and the Central Banks’ Ability in Developing Countries

Abstract

This paper seeks to develop a theoretical strand of research in monetary economics by modelling central bank ability in the loss function. Recently, many working papers issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) prove that some central banks, particularly from developing countries, are suffering from serious operational problems that might affect their abilities to control the economy. Simultaneously, a literature review shows that the movements are toward using asymmetric loss function. Therefore, we utilize this function in the standard monetary approach. The results proved that both central bank ability and preference in developing countries are fundamental to explain inflation bias and the movement of monetary policy instrument.     

基于层次分析法的机场服务质量评价

如何更好地提高机场旅客对机场服务的满意度已成为越来越多专家学者与机场管理者研究的热点问题，科学的评价方法有助于管理者全面了解机场服务质量的现状并未其进行科学决策提供理论基础。以层次分析法（AHP）为基础构建了机场服务质量评价体系，阐述了模型的具体评价过程。以青岛流亭国际机场为例进行实证分析。结果表明，运用AHP方法进行机场服务质量综合评价是可行的，该方法的评价结果可以给机场管理者提供一定的参考意义。     

Citation success: Evidence from economic history journal publications

This study examines the determinants of citation success among authors who have recently published their work in economic history journals. Besides offering clues about how to improve one's scientific impact, our citation analysis also sheds light on the state of the field of economic history. Consistent with our expectations, we find that full professors, authors appointed at economics and history departments, and authors working in Anglo-Saxon and German countries are more likely to receive citations than other scholars. Long and co-authored articles are also a factor for citation success. We find similar patterns when assessing the same authors' citation success in economics journals. As a novel feature, we demonstrate that the diffusion of research — publication of working papers, as well as conference and workshop presentations — has a first-order positive impact on the citation rate.