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We study the evolution of topics in economics and their geographical specialization by analyzing 13,233 papers from seven top journals between 1985 and 2012 and their forward citations. The share of U.S. publications declines from 75% to 64% with a corresponding increase of the European share from 12% to 24%. We use topic modeling and document the evolution of the discipline over 27 years. We estimate, with a quasi‐structural model, the citation lag distribution for 18 different topics and three large geographical areas. The modal citation lag is about 6.7 years in the entire sample and 4.8 years for citations from the top 100 journals. We quantify (1) the home bias effect in citations, (2) how it fades away over time, (3) the long lasting impact of U.S. publications vis‐a‐vis other geographical areas, and (4) the higher speed of diffusion and faster obsolescence in the United States. (JEL A14, I23, O33, A11)

Este artículo estudia la revista Economía Española (1933-1936) como uno de los canales institucionales de divulgación de la ciencia económica durante los años 30. La importancia de la revista en el ámbito de la economía y la contribución de los principales economistas españoles del periodo hacen de la misma un observatorio que ofrece una fiel visión del estado de la ciencia económica en España tanto a nivel teórico, aplicado como institucional. Su estudio también nos permite valorar el reconocimiento público de la comunidad de economistas y realizar una primera aproximación a la divulgación e influencia de las ideas de los economistas en la esfera pública española durante el periodo de la II República. The institutional development of economics proves to be one of the most fruitful fields of research in countries where original contributions to the science are uncommon. This article focuses on the journal Economía Española (1933-1936) as one of the main channels of diffusion of economic analysis in Spain during the 1930s. Given the significance of the journal and its prestigious contributors, its analysis provides a faithful account of the state of political economy during the period at a theoretical, applied, and institutional level. Similarly, a primary approach is presented on the level of public acknowledgement of the economist community and the permeating of their ideas into the public sphere during the period of the Spanish Second Republic.

The paper considers a new stage in the formation of the Russian market of economic journals, the stage at which an increasing number of them are accepted for coverage in international databases such as Scopus and Web of Science. In order to make an adequate assessment of the qualitative changes that have occurred in the market, we propose to introduce significant adjustments to the methodology for compiling the academic Rating of leading Russian economic journals. The adjustments affect both the subsystem of scientometric indicators where it takes into account the potential of high citations, and the subsystem of expert evaluation where it takes into account the publication’s inclusion in the databases Scopus and Web of Science (WoS). We provide the results of the 4th wave of the Rating of leading Russian economic journals presented in the form of the Diamond List and the List of the second tier of journals. We analyze the shifts in the positions of the journals in comparison with previous years; we show that Russia already has 15 economic publications with international certification, among which five publications have double certification (both Scopus and WoS). The figures show that a new qualitative round of competition has begun among the journals that have received international recognition. We prove that a journal’s success or failure in its efforts to be included in international databases depends on whether its management is willing to follow the new rules and standards. This is largely the reason why many domestic journals have lost their positions. The following are considered as typical strategies a journal should use to achieve success: to implement a sequence of efforts to be accepted for coverage in international databases; to “hunt” for best authors; to provide a flexible peer review system; to publish a full-scale English version of the journal. We substantiate a new publishing paradigm, according to which Russian economists in the coming years will reconsider their views in favor of placing their papers in first-rate domestic publications rather than publishing them in second-rate foreign journals

The foundation of specialised economic journals was one of the main traits in the process of institutionalisation of political economy in 19th century Western Europe. Spain joined this trend at an early stage and in the 1850s and 1860s some specialised, albeit ephemeral, journals sponsored by the liberal school of economic thought – the Economist School – emerged. However, when these reviews ceased publication, Spanish economists lacked specialised periodicals as an outlet for their contributions. Miscellaneous literary reviews addressing a wider audience represented an alternative for the diffusion of economic papers into educated society, sharing space with many other scientific and literary disciplines. This paper analyses the presence of texts on political economy in four of the most important of these reviews in the period 1868-1914, when Spain lacked economic publications. In spite of not being specialised reviews, these publications played a central role in the process of diffusion and popularisation of political economy as a valuable field of knowledge, acting as a good substitute for specifically economic journals. La creación de revistas especializadas en economía es uno de los rasgos importantes del proceso de institucionalización de la economía política en Europa en el siglo XIX. En España algunas revistas especializadas de breve vida vinculadas a la Escuela Economista aparecieron en las décadas de 1850- 1860. Desde su cierre hasta la segunda década del siglo XX no existieron revistas específicamente económicas en España. Las publicaciones periódicas de carácter cultural y literario ofrecieron una alternativa para la difusión de artículos sobre cuestiones económicas, compartiendo espacio con otras disciplinas científicas, literarias y sociales. Este artículo analiza la presencia de textos económicos en las más importantes de estas revistas entre 1868 y 1914. La conclusión es que, a pesar de no ser un marco especializado, estas publicaciones jugaron un papel importante en el proceso de difusión y popularización de la economía como un valioso campo de conocimiento, constituyendo un buen sustituto para la ausencia de publicaciones especializadas. Financial support has also been provided by the research project ECO2012-39169-C03-03 (Ministry of Science, Spain), the research groups GRGDEP (XREPP) and SGR 1345 (Gov. of Catalonia) and the Centre d’Estudis Antoni de Capmany.

The exploratory analysis developed in this paper relies on the hypothesis that each editor possesses some power in the definition of the editorial policy of her journal. Consequently if the same scholar sits on the board of editors of two journals, those journals could have some common elements in their editorial policies. The proximity of the editorial policies of two scientific journals can be assessed by the number of common editors sitting on their boards. A database of all editors of ECONLIT journals is used. The structure of the network generated by interlocking editorship is explored by applying the instruments of network analysis. Evidences have been found of a compact network containing different components. This is interpreted as the result of a plurality of perspectives about the appropriate methods for the investigation of problems and the construction of theories within the domain of economics.

The purpose of this paper is to rank economic journals in the broader field of policy and political science. By using one composite input and one composite output the paper ranks 52 journals in a linear programming setting using data for the time period of 1996-2010. In addition for the first time three different quality ranking reports have been incorporated into a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) modelling problem in order to classify these journals into four categories (‘A’ to ‘D’). The rankings suggest that the journals with the highest rankings are American Political Science Review, Research Policy, The China Quarterly, Public Choice and Journal of Conflict Resolution.

The purpose of this paper is to rank economic journals in the broader field of sociology and demography. By using one composite input and one composite output the paper ranks 40 journals in a linear programming setting using data for the time period of 1996-2010. In addition for the first time three different quality ranking reports have been incorporated into a Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) modelling problem in order to classify these journals into four categories (‘A’ to ‘D’).

An exploratory analysis of the crossed presence (interlocking editorship) of the same scholars in the editorial boards of Italian and international economic journals is developed. The position and the degree of integration of Italian journals in the worldwide network of economic journals is studied with network analysis techniques and a ranking of Italian journals, based on a measure of centrality, is proposed. Then relatively compact groups of international journals are individuated, representing different specialized subfield or different methodological approaches to the study of economics. The analysis of the relative position of Italian journals in those groups suggests that Italian journals are not connected to the cores of the various schools operating at an international level, with the only exception of the history of economic thought.

This short paper presents some preliminary results of an ongoing research work focusing on richness and diversity of economic literature. The key idea is that each article published in an economic journal retains multiple identities. These multiple identities are captured through the use of Jel codes. A sample of ten top generalist journals has been selected. The relative abundance of all Jel categories has been computed for the period 2000-2006. Moreover, a degree of diversity has been proposed for both the sampled journals and the entire Econlit database.

The present paper examines the links between self-citation and authors’ co-incidence with impact factors of economic journals indexed in ISC. It is essentially a scientometric research employing citation analysis and literature survey. Data was collected by querying ISC and leafing through the journals studied. Self-citation, authors’ co-incidence and impact factor of the journal studied formed the variables. Correlation analysis indicated that there is a significance between authors’ self-citations and co-incidence with impact factor of the journals studied. Significance was also found between authors’ co-incidence and self-citation of the journals studied.