Coping with the Inequity and Inefficiency of the H-Index: A Cross-Disciplinary Empirical Analysis

Fabio Zagonari () and Paolo Foschi
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Fabio Zagonari: Dipartimento di Scienze per la Qualità della Vita, Università di Bologna, C.so d’Augusto 237, 47921 Rimini, Italy

Publications, 2024, vol. 12, issue 2, 1-30

Abstract: This paper measures two main inefficiency features (many publications other than articles; many co-authors’ reciprocal citations) and two main inequity features (more co-authors in some disciplines; more citations for authors with more experience). It constructs a representative dataset based on a cross-disciplinary balanced sample (10,000 authors with at least one publication indexed in Scopus from 2006 to 2015). It estimates to what extent four additional improvements of the H-index as top-down regulations (∆H h = H h − H h+1 from H 1 = based on publications to H 5 = net per-capita per-year based on articles) account for inefficiency and inequity across twenty-five disciplines and four subjects. Linear regressions and ANOVA results show that the single improvements of the H-index considerably and decreasingly explain the inefficiency and inequity features but make these vaguely comparable across disciplines and subjects, while the overall improvement of the H-index (H 1 –H 5 ) marginally explains these features but make disciplines and subjects clearly comparable, to a greater extent across subjects than disciplines. Fitting a Gamma distribution to H 5 for each discipline and subject by maximum likelihood shows that the estimated probability densities and the percentages of authors characterised by H 5 ≥ 1 to H 5 ≥ 3 are different across disciplines but similar across subjects.

Keywords: H-index; Scopus dataset; inefficiency; inequity; disciplines (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 D83 L82 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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