Citations and Incentives in Academic Contests

Abstract

Ellison (2013) defines a variant of the h-index, h(a, b)-index which is the largest number h such that a researcher has at least h papers with ah b citations each, where a and b are positive numbers. He estimates a and b to fit the data on the rankings of economists at the top 50 U.S. universities. Kosmulski (2006) used a = 1 and b = 2 in his analysis.