Tools or Toys? The Impact of High Technology on Scholarly Productivity

Toys. The impact of computers on productivity has been examined directly on macro data and indirectly (on wages) using microeconomic data. This study examines the direct impact on the productivity of scholarship by considering how high technology might alter patterns of coauthoring of articles in economics and their influence. Using all coauthored articles in three major economics journals from 1970-79 and 1992-96, we find: 1) Sharp growth in the percentage of distant coauthorships (those between authors who were not in the same metropolitan areas in the four years prior to publication), as the theory predicts. Contrary to the theory: 2) Lower productivity (in terms of subsequent citations) of distant than close-coauthored papers; and 3) No decline in their relative disadvantage between the 1970s and 1990s. These findings are reconciled by the argument that high-technology functions as a consumption rather than an investment good. As such, it can be welfare-increasing without increasing productivity.

Ranking Dutch Economists

This paper ranks Dutch economists using information about publications and citations. Rankings involve the aggregation of several performance dimensions. Instead of using a cardinal approach, where each dimension is weighted based on impact factors of journals for example, we use an ordinal approach which accounts for quality differences between journals and also takes citations into account. We find that this ordinal approach is more robust. Based on the ordinal ranking of publications and citations we find that Peter Wakker is the most productive economist, followed by Michel Wedel. The third place in the ranking is ex aequo for Philip-Hans Franses and Florencio Lopez de Silanes. Adding-up the individual output we find that the economists of Erasmus University Rotterdam are the most productive, followed ex aequo by Tilburg University and Free University Amsterdam.Productivity of economists;ranking

Citation gaming induced by bibliometric evaluation: a country-level comparative analysis

It is several years since national research evaluation systems around the globe started making use of quantitative indicators to measure the performance of researchers. Nevertheless, the effects on these systems on the behavior of the evaluated researchers are still largely unknown. We attempt to shed light on this topic by investigating how Italian researchers reacted to the introduction in 2011 of national regulations in which key passages of professional careers are governed by bibliometric indicators. A new inwardness measure, able to gauge the degree of scientific self-referentiality of a country, is defined as the proportion of citations coming from the country itself compared to the total number of citations gathered by the country. Compared to the trends of the other G10 countries in the period 2000-2016, Italy's inwardness shows a net increase after the introduction of the new evaluation rules. Indeed, globally and also for a large majority of the research fields, Italy became the European country with the highest inwardness. Possible explanations are proposed and discussed, concluding that the observed trends are strongly suggestive of a generalized strategic use of citations, both in the form of author self-citations and of citation clubs. We argue that the Italian case offers crucial insights on the constitutive effects of evaluation systems. As such, it could become a paradigmatic case in the debate about the use of indicators in science-policy contexts

Publishing patterns within the UK accounting and finance academic community

This study reports on publishing patterns in the UK and Irish accounting and finance academic community for the 2-year period 1998-1999 using the data contained in the BAR Research Register. It is found that the community has been growing modestly since 1991, with a doubling in the number of PhD-qualified staff (to 30%) and a reduction in the number with a professional qualification (from 81 to 58%). Nearly half of all outputs appear in other than academic journals. The mean number of publications is 1.76 per capita, with significantly more staff active in publishing than in 1991 (44% compared to 35%). However, only 17% publish in a subset of 60 'top' journals. Just over half of all articles are published in the core discipline journals, the rest appearing mainly in management, economics, sociology, education and IT journals. This may indicate a growing maturity in the disciplines, whereby applied research findings are flowing back into related foundation and business disciplines. Nearly two-thirds of academic articles are co-authored, with 25% of contributions coming from outside the community, indicating an openness to interdisciplinary collaboration, collaboration with overseas academics and collaboration with individuals in practice. The findings of this study will be of assistance to those making career decisions (either their own career or decisions involving other people's careers). They also raise awareness of the way in which the accounting and finance disciplines are developing

Ranking Dutch economists

This paper ranks Dutch economists using information about publications and citations. Rankings involve the aggregation of several performance dimensions. Instead of using a cardinal approach, where each dimension is weighted based on impact factors of journals for example, we use an ordinal approach which accounts for quality differences between journals and also takes citations into account. We find that this ordinal approach is more robust. Based on the ordinal ranking of publications and citations we find that Peter Wakker is the most productive economist, followed by Michel Wedel. The third place in the ranking is ex aequo for Philip-Hans Franses and Florencio Lopez de Silanes. Adding-up the individual output we find that the economists of Erasmus University Rotterdam are the most productive, followed ex aequo by Tilburg University and Free University Amsterdam.