Citations or Journal Quality: Which Is Rewarded More in the Academic Labor Market?

Abstract

Research quality can be evaluated from citations or from the prestige of journals publishing the research. We relate salary of tenured University of California (UC) economists to their lifetime publications of 5,500 articles and to the 140,000 citations to these articles. Citations hardly affect salary, especially in top‐ranked UC departments where impacts of citations are less than one‐tenth those of journals. In lower ranked departments, and when journal quality is less comprehensively measured, effects of citations on salary increase. If journal quality is just measured by counting articles in journal tiers, apparent effects of citations are overstated. (JEL A14, J44)

Citations In Economics: Measurement, Uses, and Impacts

“…Some of the studies in table 9, beginning with Sauer (1988), included covariates indicating the number, length, and journal level of each scholar's publications. Even in those cases, as the Moore, Newman, and Turnbull (1998), Baser and Pema (2003), Bratsberg, Ragan, and Warren (2010), Hilmer, Ransom, and Hilmer (2015), and Gibson, Anderson, and Tressler (2017) studies, and the Sen, Voia, and Woolley (2010) data, also suggest, the evidence generally suggests that citations have an independent impact on salaries.…”

Normalisation of citation impact in economics

“…Using citation data from WoS, we realized that the citation rates substantially differ across economic subfields. As in many other disciplines, citation impact analyses can significantly inspire or hamper the career paths of researchers in economics, their salaries and reputation (Ellison 2013;Gibson et al 2014Gibson et al , 2017. In a literature overview Hamermesh (2018) demonstrates that citations are related to the salaries earned by economists.…”

Differences in Citation Patterns Across Journal Tiers: The Case of Economics

“…This emphasis on top five outlets is believed to exert a powerful influence on the direction of research in economics, the reputation and pay of economics scholars, the decision of funding agencies, as well as on departments' and universities' rankings (Cole and Cole ; Ellison ; Gibson, Anderson, and Tressler , ; Hamermesh ; Hamermesh and Pfann ; Hazelkorn ; Hilmer and Hilmer ; Hilmer, Ransom, and Hilmer ; Oswald ; Serrano ; Smith and Eysenck ; Verma ; Zimmermann ). For this reason, it is not uncommon to read claims such as “ The economics profession rewards one research paper in a top five journal more than say five good publications in journals outside this narrow set… ” (McKenzie ).…”

“…In parallel to top five publications counts, economics scholars also have drawn more and more on quantitative indicators based on citation counts to assess researchers and research institutions performance (Cole and Cole ; Ellison ; Gibson, Anderson, and Tressler , ; Hazelkorn, ; Seeber et al ). However, exceling performance in terms of citation counts does not necessarily go hand in hand with publication venue reputation.…”