An Updated Ranking of Academic Journals in Economics

We conduct an update of the ranking of economic journals by Kalaitzidakis, Mamuneas and Stengos (2003). However, our present study differs methodologically from that earlier study in an important dimension. We use a rolling window of years between 2003 and 2008, for each year counting the number of citations of articles published in the previous ten years. This allows us to obtain a smoother longer view of the evolution of rankings in the period under consideration and avoid the inherent randomness that may exist at any particular year. Using this framework we proceed to examine the relative ranking of the Canadian Journal of Economics over time. We find the Canadian Journal managed not only to maintain its relative position, but to also improve it over time.

The Contribution of Pollution to Productivity Growth.

In this paper we examine the effect of pollution, as measured by CO2 emissions, on economic growth among a set of OECD countries during the period 1981-1998. We examine the relationship between total factor productivity (TFP) growth and pollution using a semiparametric smooth coefficient model that allow us to directly estimate the output elasticity of pollution. The results indicate that there exists a nonlinear relationship between pollution and TFP growth. The output elasticity of pollution is small with an average sample value of 0.008. In addition we find an average contribution of pollution to productivity growth of about 1 percent for the period 1981-1998. JEL Classifications: C14, O13, O40TFP Growth, Pollution, Semiparametric Estimation.

Proof over promise: towards a more inclusive ranking of Dutch academics in Economics & Business

The Dutch Economics top-40, based on publications in ISI listed journals, is - to the best of our knowledge - the oldest ranking of individual academics in Economics and is well accepted in the Dutch academic community. However, this ranking is based on publication volume, rather than on the actual impact of the publications in question. This paper therefore uses two relatively new metrics, the citations per author per year (CAY) metric and the individual annual h-index (hIa) to provide two alternative, citation-based, rankings of Dutch academics in Economics & Business. As a data source, we use Google Scholar instead of ISI to provide a more comprehensive measure of impact, including citations to and from publications in non-ISI listed journals, books, working and conference papers. The resulting rankings are shown to be substantially different from the original ranking based on publications. Just like other research metrics, the CAY or hIa-index should never be used as the sole criterion to evaluate academics. However, we do argue that the hIa-index and the related citations per author per year metric provide an important additional perspective over and above a ranking based on publications in high impact journals alone. Citation-based rankings are also shown to inject a higher level of diversity in terms of age, gender, discipline and academic affiliation and thus appear to be more inclusive of a wider range of scholarship

The intellectual influence of economic journals: quality versus quantity

The evaluation of scientific output has a key role in the allocation of research funds and academic positions. Decisions are often based on quality indicators for academic journals, and over the years, a handful of scoring methods have been proposed for this purpose. Discussing the most prominent methods (de facto standards) we show that they do not distinguish quality from quantity at article level. The systematic bias we find is analytically tractable and implies that the methods are manipulable. We introduce modified methods that correct for this bias, and use them to provide rankings of economic journals. Our methodology is transparent; our results are replicable

Rules versus Discretion in Committee Decision Making: An Application to the 2001 RAE for UK Economics Departments

The question of rules versus discretion has generated a great deal of debate in many areas of the social sciences. Recently, much of the discussion among academics and stakeholders about the assessment of research in UK higher education institutions has focused on the means that should be used to determine research quality. We present a model of committee decision-making when both rules and discretion are available. Some of the predictions of the model are tested empirically using the UK RAE 2001 results

Role of Education in Economic Growth in the Russian Federation and Ukraine

This study analyses the role and impact of education on economic growth in the two largest economies of the former Soviet Bloc, namely, the Russian Federation and Ukraine. It attempts to estimate the significance of different educational levels, including secondary and tertiary education, for initiating substantial economic growth that now takes place in these two countries. This study estimates the model of endogenous economic growth and the system of linear and log-linear equations that account for different time lags in the possible impact of higher education on economic growth. The model estimation shows that there is no significant impact of educational attainment on economic growth. The results from the system of equations indicate that an increase in access of population to higher education brings positive results for the per capita GDP growth in the long term. Increasing the number of college-educated specialists leads to sustainable economic growth. The suggestion can be made that the ground for the 2000-2007 rapid economic growth in Ukraine and in the Russian Federation was laid down in early 1990s. This contradicts commonly accepted perception about the crisis decade of 1990s in the former Soviet Bloc