Working Paper 05-12
by Yolanda K. Kodrzycki and Pingkang David Yu

A subsequent version of this paper has been published by the Berkeley Electronic Press Journal Contributions to Economic Analysis & Policy and is available on their web site at: http://www.bepress.com/bejeap/contributions/vol5/iss1/art24

We develop a flexible, citations- and reference-intensity-adjusted ranking technique that allows a specified set of journals to be evaluated using a range of alternative criteria. We also distinguish between the influence of a journal and that of a journal article, with the latter concept arguably being more relevant for measuring research productivity. The list of top economics journals can (but does not necessarily) change noticeably when one examines citations in the social science and policy literatures, and when one measures citations on a perarticle basis. The changes in rankings are due to the broad interest in applied microeconomics and economic development, to differences in citation norms and in the relative importance assigned to theoretical and empirical contributions, and to the lack of a systematic effect of journal size on influence per article. We also find that economics is comparatively selfcontained but nevertheless draws knowledge from a range of other disciplines.

This paper was revised in August 2006.

JEL classification codes: A10, A12

Keywords: economics journals, social sciences journals, policy journals, finance journals, rankings, citations, research productivity, interdisciplinary communications

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