Alphabetized co-authorship in economics reconsidered

Klaus Wohlrabe and Lutz Bornmann
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Lutz Bornmann: Science Policy and Strategy Department, Administrative Headquarters of the Max Planck Society

Scientometrics, 2022, vol. 127, issue 5, No 3, 2173-2193

Abstract: Abstract In this article, we revisit the analysis of Laband and Tollison (Appl Econ 38(14):1649–1653, 2006) who documented that articles with two authors in alphabetical order are cited much more often than non-alphabetized papers with two authors in the American Economic Review and the American Journal of Agricultural Economics. Using more than 120,000 multi-authored articles from the Web of Science economics subject category, we demonstrate first that the alphabetization rate in economics has declined over the last decade. Second, we find no statistically significant relationship between alphabetized co-authorship and citations in economics using six different regression settings (the coefficients are very small). This result holds mostly true when accounting both for journal heterogeneity and intentionally or incidentally alphabetical ordering of authors. We find some evidence that alphabetization in case of two authos increases citations rates for very high-impact journals. Third, we show that the likelihood of non-alphabetized co-authorship increases the more authors an article has.

Keywords: Alphabetization; Co-authorship; Citations; Web of science (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 A14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Alphabetized Co-Authorship in Economics Reconsidered (2021)
Working Paper: Alphabetized co-authorship in economics reconsidered (2019)
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DOI: 10.1007/s11192-022-04322-9

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