Gintropic scaling of scientometric indexes

Tamás S. Biró, András Telcs, Máté Józsa and Zoltán Néda

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2023, vol. 618, issue C

Abstract: The most frequently used indicators for the productivity and impact of scientists are the total number of publication (Npub), total number of citations (Ncit) and the Hirsch (h) index. Since the seminal paper of Hirsch, in 2005, it is largely debated whether the h index can be considered as an indicator independent of Npub and Ncit. Exploiting the Paretian form for the distribution of citations for the papers authored by a researcher, here we discuss scaling relations between h, Npub and Ncit. The analysis incorporates the Gini index as an inequality measure of citation distributions and a recently proposed inequality kernel, gintropy (resembling to the entropy kernel). We find a new upper bound for the h value as a function of the total number of citations, confirmed on massive data collected from Google Scholar. Our analyses reveals also that the individualized Gini index calculated for the citations received by the publications of an author peaks around 0.8, a value much higher than the one usually reported for socio-economic inequalities.

Keywords: Scaling; H index; Data mining; Lorentz curve; Scientometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:618:y:2023:i:c:s0378437123002728

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2023.128717

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