An Examination of the Reliability of Prestigious Scholarly Journals: Evidence and Implications for Decision-makers

Andrew J. Oswald

No 2070, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA)

Abstract: In universities all over the world, hiring and promotion committees regularly hear the argument: "this is important work because it is about to appear in prestigious journal X". Moreover, those who allocate levels of research funding, such as in the multi-billion pound Research Assessment Exercise in UK universities, often come under pressure to assess research quality in a mechanical way by using journal prestige ratings. The results in this paper suggest that such tendencies are dangerous. It uses total citations over a quarter of a century as the criterion. The paper finds that it is far better to publish the best article in an issue of a medium-quality journal like the Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics than to publish the worst article (or often the worst 4 articles) in an issue of a top journal like the American Economic Review. Implications are discussed.

Keywords: citations; research productivity; economics journals; Research Assessment Exercise (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sog
Date: 2006-04
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Related works:
Working Paper: An Examination of the Reliability of Prestigious Scholarly Journals: Evidence and Implications for Decision-makers (2006)
Journal Article: An Examination of the Reliability of Prestigious Scholarly Journals: Evidence and Implications for Decision-Makers (2007)
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