Credit Where Credit's Due: Accounting for Co-Authorship in Citation Counts

Richard Tol

No WP387, Papers from Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI)

Abstract: I propose a new method (Pareto weights) to objectively attribute citations to co-authors. Previous methods either profess ignorance about the seniority of co-authors (egalitarian weights) or are based in an ad hoc way on the order of authors (rank weights). Pareto weights are based on the respective citation records of the co-authors. Pareto weights are proportional to the probability of observing the number of citations obtained. Assuming a Pareto distribution, such weights can be computed with a simple, closed-form equation but require a few iterations and data on a scholar, her co-authors, and her co-authors' co-authors. The use of Pareto weights is illustrated with a group of prominent economists. In this case, Pareto weights are very different from rank weights. Pareto weights are more similar to egalitarian weights but can deviate up to a quarter in either direction (for reasons that are intuitive).

Keywords: data (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-sog
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Journal Article: Credit where credit’s due: accounting for co-authorship in citation counts (2011)
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