How robust are journal rankings based on the impact factor? Evidence from the economic sciences

Christian Seiler and Klaus Wohlrabe

Journal of Informetrics, 2014, vol. 8, issue 4, 904-911

Abstract: It is well-known that the distribution of citations to articles in a journal is skewed. We ask whether journal rankings based on the impact factor are robust with respect to this fact. We exclude the most cited paper, the top 5 and 10 cited papers for 100 economics journals and recalculate the impact factor. Afterwards we compare the resulting rankings with the original ones from 2012. Our results show that the rankings are relatively robust. This holds both for the 2-year and the 5-year impact factor.

Keywords: Impact factor; Ranking; Skewness; Economics journals (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 A14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:infome:v:8:y:2014:i:4:p:904-911

DOI: 10.1016/j.joi.2014.09.001

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