The inner quality of an article: Will time tell?

Ho Fai Chan, Malka Guillot, Lionel Page and Benno Torgler ()
Additional contact information
Malka Guillot: Ecole Nationale Statistique et de l’Administration Economique (ENSAE)
Benno Torgler: Queensland University of Technology

Scientometrics, 2015, vol. 104, issue 1, No 2, 19-41

Abstract: Abstract In this paper, we assess whether quality survives the test of time in academia by comparing up to 80 years of academic journal article citations from two top journals, Econometrica and the American Economic Review. The research setting under analysis is analogous to a controlled real world experiment in that it involves a homogeneous task (trying to publish in top journals) by individuals with a homogenous job profile (academics) in a specific research environment (economics and econometrics). Comparing articles published concurrently in the same outlet at the same time (same issue) indicates that symbolic capital or power due to institutional affiliation or connection does seem to boost citation success at the beginning, giving those educated at or affiliated with leading universities an initial comparative advantage. Such advantage, however, does not hold in the long run: at a later stage, the publications of other researchers become as or even more successful.

Keywords: Citations; Quality; Time; Long-run; Biases; Research environment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-015-1581-y Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:scient:v:104:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-015-1581-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11192

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-015-1581-y

Access Statistics for this article

Scientometrics is currently edited by Wolfgang Glänzel

More articles in Scientometrics from Springer, Akadémiai Kiadó
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().