High-Ranked Social Science Journal Articles Can Be Identified from Early Citation Information

24 Pages Posted: 20 Jun 2014

See all articles by David I. Stern

David I. Stern

Australian National University (ANU) - Crawford School of Public Policy

Date Written: June 11, 2014

Abstract

Do citations accumulate too slowly in the social sciences to be used to assess the quality of recent articles? I investigate whether this is the case using citation data for all articles in economics and political science published in 2006 and indexed in the Web of Science. Surprisingly, citations in the first one to two years after publication are highly predictive for cumulative citations received over a longer period. Journal impact factors improve the correlation between the predicted and actual future ranks of journal articles when using citation data from 2006 alone but the effect declines sharply thereafter.

Keywords: Citation analysis, impact factor, research assessment

JEL Classification: A12, A14

Suggested Citation

Stern, David I., High-Ranked Social Science Journal Articles Can Be Identified from Early Citation Information (June 11, 2014). Crawford School Research Paper No. 14-06, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2456107 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2456107

David I. Stern (Contact Author)

Australian National University (ANU) - Crawford School of Public Policy ( email )

ANU College of Asia and the Pacific
J.G. Crawford Building, #132, Lennox Crossing
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory 0200
Australia

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