The Geography and Concentration of Authorship in the Top Five: Implications For European Economics
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/sjpe.12208 |
| Published date | 01 May 2019 |
| Date | 01 May 2019 |
THE GEOGRAPHY AND
CONCENTRATION OF AUTHORSHIP IN
THE TOP FIVE: IMPLICATIONS FOR
EUROPEAN ECONOMICS
Simon Ek*,** and Magnus Henrekson*
ABSTRACT
We study to what degree authors who publish in the five most prestigious jour-
nals in economics have previously published there and in which world region they
are based. Although still high, the concentration of United States-based and pre-
viously published top-five authors has decreased. This trend is driven by
increased co-authorship between USA and non-USA scholars and between schol-
ars with and without previous top-five articles. Only around 5% of all articles
each year are written solely by first-time authors from outside the United States,
and this share has not increased since the mid-1990s. Against this background,
we argue that European institutions should be wary of putting too much empha-
sis on publishing in these five journals. Both the advancement and diversity of
the economics discipline may otherwise suffer.
II
NTRODUCTION
In recent years, an important discussion has emerged regarding how research
output should be evaluated in academia, including in economics. There are
indications that the increased pressure to publish, especially in prestigious
journals, distorts the incentives for and thus the behavior of researchers. Some
believe this is leading to a decline in the overall quality, relevance, and trust-
worthiness of research (Bauerlein et al., 2010; Belluz et al., 2016; Edwards
and Roy, 2017).
An essential part of this debate concerns the widespread use of ‘outlet-
based’ metrics, such as the Journal Impact Factor (JIF), in order to measure
not only the quantity but also the quality of researchers’ output as a basis for
decisions on hiring, tenure, and funding. In that case, a paper is not valued
on its own merits but rather on where, i.e., in which journal, it is published.
1
*Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN)
**Uppsala University
1
The JIF is determined by the average number of citations that a journal’s articles get over
a rolling time window.
Scottish Journal of Political Economy, DOI: 10.1111/sjpe.12208, Vol. 66, No. 2, May 2019
©2019 Scottish Economic Society.
215
In economics, one of the simplest yet most common outlet-based quality
metrics is the top-five journal publication indicator. This metric only values
publications in one of the five most prestigious academic journals of the disci-
pline. These are the American Economic Review (AER), Econometrica
(ECMA), the Journal of Political Economy (JPE), the Quarterly Journal of
Economics (QJE), and the Review of Economic Studies (RES).
2
There is a
strong consensus among economists that, especially in recent years, publishing
in a top-five journal has become increasingly important for attaining posi-
tions, tenure, promotions, and funding (e.g., Heckman et al., 2017; Hamer-
mesh, 2018; Serrano, 2018).
This also seems to be the case in Europe. According to Frey (2009), eco-
nomics departments at numerous European universities quantify research out-
put for the purpose of tenure and promotion decisions, where a top-five
publication typically receives three times as much weight as a journal ranked
immediately below the top five. Based on conversations with scholars from
around Europe, Frey asserts that implicit ‘publish in A-level journals or perish’
requirements are widely spread across academic institutions. In Sweden, for
example, some departments that rely on more ‘mechanical’ calculations in their
tenure evaluations award more points to articles in the top five compared to
other prestigious (such as ‘top-field’) journals. Although no institution formally
demands top-five publications for any position, many of the colleagues at dif-
ferent universities we have consulted assert that top-five publications are given
a strong informal weight. This is especially true for appointments to full profes-
sor, where decisions are largely based on evaluations by external experts.
Although many scholars worry about the consequences of this increased
focus on top-five publications, there has been little empirical research so far
about how it may have influenced publication patterns. For this reason, exam-
ining who publishes in the top five, and how they succeed in doing so, is of
general interest and importance to the economics discipline. This paper analyzes
two characteristics of authors in the top five: geographic location and past pub-
lication history, including the structure of co-authorship in these dimensions.
Special emphasis is put on studying trends in these characteristics over the last
two and a half decades (1994–2017). Shifts in these patterns, although not
direct evidence of behavioral changes from an increased top-five focus, may still
be highly suggestive and offer a number of hypotheses for further research.
We show that although still high, the concentration of United States-based
and previously published top-five authors has decreased significantly. This
trend is driven by increased co-authorship between USA and non-USA schol-
ars and between scholars with and without previous top-five articles. On the
other hand, this is to a considerable extent due to the fact that the majority
of top-five authors only publish once in the top five during the 24-year period
and in most cases they do so together with at least one previously published
co-author. Only around 5% of all articles each year are written solely by first-
time authors from outside the United States, and this share has not increased
2
All journals are based in the United States except the RES, which is based in Europe.
216 SIMON EK AND MAGNUS HENREKSON
Scottish Journal of Political Economy
©2019 Scottish Economic Society
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