Does Data Disclosure Increase Citations? Empirical Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Leading Economics Journals

Mark J. McCabe and Frank Mueller-Langer
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Mark J. McCabe: Questrom School of Business, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

No 2019-02, JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy from Joint Research Centre

Abstract: Does data disclosure have an impact on citations? Four leading economics journals introduced a data disclosure policy between 2004 and 2006. We use panel data consisting of 17,135 article citing-year observations from 1996 to 2015 for articles published in these journals. Empirical articles that did not disclose data (46% of the sample) serve as a control group. Evidence for a positive open data citation effect is weak (6% and not statistically significant). On the other hand, the citation impacts of publication are substantial and precisely estimated. Pure theory, hybrid and purely empirical articles enjoy citations benefits of 22%, 32% and 44%, respectively. Our pre- and post-publication citation data allow us to identify the citation effects of data disclosure and publication, while controlling for intrinsic article quality.

Keywords: Data disclosure; diffusion of knowledge; natural experiment; panel data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C80 L17 L59 O33 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2019-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sog
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ipt:decwpa:201902

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