Working Paper: NBER ID: w21754
Authors: Daniel S. Hamermesh
Abstract: I describe and compare sources of data on citations in economics and the statistics that can be constructed from them. Constructing data sets of the post-publication citation histories of articles published in the “Top 5” journals in the 1970s and the 2000s, I examine distributions and life cycles of citations, compare citation histories of articles in different sub-specialties in economics and present evidence on the history and heterogeneity of those journals’ impacts and the marginal citation productivity of additional coauthors. I use a new data set of the lifetime citation histories of over 1000 economists from 30 universities to rank economics departments by various measures and to demonstrate the importance of intra- and inter-departmental heterogeneity in productivity. Throughout, the discussion summarizes earlier work. I survey research on the impacts of citations on salaries and non-monetary rewards and discuss how citations reflect judgments about research quality in economics.
Keywords: citations; economics; academic productivity; citation analysis
JEL Codes: A11; A14; J31
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| citations (A14) | scholarly quality (A14) |
| citations (A14) | economic outcomes for scholars (I24) |
| co-authorship (A31) | citation counts (A14) |
| institutional prestige (A14) | economic outcomes for scholars (I24) |
| individual career choices (J62) | economic outcomes for scholars (I24) |