Citation Success: Evidence from Economic History Journal Publications

Abstract

This study examines the determinants of citation success among authors who have recently published their work in economic history journals. Besides offering clues about how to improve one's scientific impact, our citation analysis also sheds light on the state of the field of economic history. Consistent with our expectations, we find that full professors, authors appointed at economics and history departments, and authors working in Anglo-Saxon and German countries are more likely to receive citations than other scholars. Long and co-authored articles are also a factor for citation success. We find similar patterns when assessing the same authors' citation success in economics journals. As a novel feature, we demonstrate that the diffusion of research -publication of working papers, as well as conference and workshop presentationshas a first-order positive impact on the citation rate.

Online publishing and citation success in the accounting, business and economic history of Spain, 1997–2011

“…Indeed, overall behaviour of citations success in our sample observes (to the naked eye) significantly lower values that those reported by systematic studies of international peer-reviewed journals (such as Di Vaio et al, 2012).…”

“…This set built upon the 14 outlets on economic history used by Di Vaio et al (2012) 6 , of which nine were found to carry items that met our selection criteria. The dataset compares handsomely with other systematic studies of citation success.…”

“…Although measuring citation success is relatively easy, its links with quality of research are doubtful as a higher success rate could be determined by factors other than its added value (Di Vaio et al, 2012). For instance, empirical studies tend to attract more citation than theoretical contributions (Johnston et al, 2012).…”

“…However, only three economic history journals: Economic History Review, Explorations in Economic History and Journal of Economic History were included in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) in 2007; thus ignoring the bulk of peer reviewed outlets that have economic history as their main field (Di Vaio and Weisdorf, 2010). Evidence documented in cross sectional studies by Di Vaio and Weisdorf (2010) and Di Vaio et al (2012) tell that in spite of this rapid globalization, full professors, authors appointed at economics and history departments, and authors working in Anglo-Saxon and German countries were more likely to receive citations than other scholars. They also showed that length and coauthorships had a positive impact on citation success.…”

Citations In Economics: Measurement, Uses, and Impacts

“…The opposite would be true if we only use the first seven years of citations to articles in the earlier sample, but the relative ranking of the journals in that earlier period would remain unchanged. 36 Oswald (2007) Vaio et al (2012). that holds for scholarly journals more generally (Stern 2013).…”