On the Influence of Top Journals

Lorenzo Ductor, Sanjeev Goyal, Marco van der Leij and Gustavo Nicolas Paez

Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge

Abstract: We study the evolution of the influence of journals over the period 1970-2017. In the early 1970's, a number of journals had similar influence. But by 1995, the `Top 5' journals - QJE, AER, RES, Econometrica, and JPE - had acquired a major lead; this dominance persists (with small changes) until 2017. To place these developments in a broader context we also study journal influence in sociology. The trends there have gone the other way - the field journals rose in influence relative to the top general journals, over the same period. We present a model of journals as platforms to help explain the different trajectories of journal influence across time and across disciplines.

Keywords: research impact; Top 5 journals; academic publishing; citations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A14 D85 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-04-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-sog
Note: sg472
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/pub ... pe-pdfs/cwpe2029.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: On the Inuence of Top Journals (2020)
Working Paper: On the Influence of Top Journals (2020)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cam:camdae:2029

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Cambridge Working Papers in Economics from Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Jake Dyer ().