The Sci-Hub effect on papers’ citations

Juan C. Correa (), Henry Laverde, Julian Tejada () and Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos ()
Additional contact information
Juan C. Correa: Prague University of Economics and Business
Julian Tejada: Universidade Federal de Sergipe
Fernando Marmolejo-Ramos: University of South Australia

Scientometrics, 2022, vol. 127, issue 1, No 4, 99-126

Abstract: Abstract Citations are often used as a metric of the impact of scientific publications. Here, we examine how the number of downloads from Sci-Hub as well as various characteristics of publications and their authors predicts future citations. Using data from 12 leading journals in economics, consumer research, neuroscience, and multidisciplinary research, we found that articles downloaded from Sci-Hub were cited 1.72 times more than papers not downloaded from Sci-Hub and that the number of downloads from Sci-Hub was a robust predictor of future citations. Among other characteristics of publications, the number of figures in a manuscript consistently predicts its future citations. The results suggest that limited access to publications may limit some scientific research from achieving its full impact.

Keywords: Citations; Knowledge dissemination; Scholar consumption; Scientific impact; Sci-Hub (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-020-03806-w 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:127:y:2022:i:1:d:10.1007_s11192-020-03806-w

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

DOI: 10.1007/s11192-020-03806-w

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 ().