Reputation and Relevance of Economics Journals

KYKLOS, Vol. 56 – 2003 – Fasc. 2, 175–198

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Reputation and Relevance of Economics Journals

Michael Bräuninger and Justus Haucap*

I. INTRODUCTION

A research article’s quality is difficult to evaluate as long as one has not readthe article yet. That is, academic articles are experience goods: One cannotjudge the product’s quality without actually consuming it1. And with a growingdegree of specialisation in economics and other social sciences, a research ar-ticle’s quality is often difficult to determine even after consumption if one is notan expert in that particular area of economics2. Hence, information about re-search quality is often imperfect. However, important career and tenure deci-sions as well as the allocation of research funding commonly depend on thesenecessarily imperfect judgements about the quality of a scientist’s research.

Imperfect information about research quality is also important because itmeans that scientists have to decide how to allocate their time and which arti-cles to read without knowing whether reading a paper is worth their time. Withmore than 700 scholarly economics journals now indexed in EconLit, it is vir-tually impossible to consume every piece of research published. Hence, scien-tists have to decide about their time allocation under imperfect information.

* Institute for Economic Policy, University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg, Holstenhofweg85, D-22043 Hamburg, Germany, e-mails: [email protected], [email protected]. This article was much improved by the comments of an anonymousreferee and the editor, René L. Frey. We also thank Tom Coupé, Ralf Dewenter, Jörg Döpke, To-bias Just, Jochen Michaelis, Markus Pannenberg and seminar participants at Konstanz and at the2002 conference of the European Association for Research in Industrial Economics (EARIE) atMadrid for helpful comments and discussions. Jörg Georgi and Malte Bastians provided mostvaluable research assistance, and we are grateful to all survey respondents for their participation.Finally, we thank Laurence Miraillès for translating the abstract into French. Of course, the usualdisclaimer applies.

1. The term ‘experience good’ has been coined by Nelson (1970) according to whom experiencegoods are those products where consumers cannot just determine product quality through simpleinspection before consumption, but where they have to ‘experience’ the product in order to de-termine its quality.

2. In this case, the article even is a so-called credence good, where only experts can determineproduct quality even after consumption (see Darby and Karni 1973).

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When information about product quality is imperfect, individuals tend toeconomise on information costs and rely on signals to form beliefs about qual-ity. Within scientific communities, beliefs and judgements about research qual-ity are often based on the journal where a particular article has been published3.

While some journal rankings utilise objective information such as a jour-nal’s impact factor4 (see, e.g., Liebowitz and Palmer 1994), others have usedsubjective measures such as peer evaluation (see, e.g., Hawkins, Ritter andWalter 1973), contributors’ institutional affiliation (Moore 1972), or a compos-ite index (McDonough 1975). Ranking journals just based on citation fre-quency basically assumes that journal quality is correctly reflected in one sin-gle measure. However, there are quite a number of problems with impact factorbased rankings (see, e.g., Beed and Beed 1996, Davis 1998). For example, theimpact factor as calculated by the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) onlyaccounts for cites that an article receives in the two years that immediately fol-low its publication. At times, impact factors vary heavily just between twoyears5. In contrast, subjective measures such as a journal’s reputation are likelyto develop over the long term and will probably not only depend on a singlemeasure, but on a number of different factors.

A firm’s reputation is the counterpart to customer expectations about itsproducts’ quality (see, e.g., Shapiro 1982). By analogy, an economics journal’sreputation is economists’ expectations about its articles’ quality. That means,economists form their expectations about a journal article that they do not oth-erwise know on the basis of the journal’s reputation. As with other experiencegoods, economists may attach a particular reputation to a journal based on theirown past experience or based on other economists’ views on the respectivejournal. However expectations are exactly formed, the more reputed a journalis, the higher are ex ante expectations about its articles’ quality. Similarly, econ-omists form expectations or beliefs about an otherwise unknown economist oran economics department based on the respective publication record.

3. In fact, there have been numerous journal rankings, e.g., Liebowitz and Palmer (1984), Pom-merehne (1986), Laband and Piette (1994), and Bräuninger and Haucap (2001). Such rankingsserve as a basis for evaluations of economics departments (e.g., Conroy et al. 1995, Bommer andUrsprung 1998, Kalaitzidakis, Mamuneas and Stengos 1999, 2001 and of individual economists,e.g., van Dalen 1997, Bommer and Ursprung 1998, and Coupé 2000).

4. A journal’s impact factor is derived by taking the number of cites that the journal’s articles re-ceive over some time span divided by the number of articles that the journal has published overa period.

5. For example, in 1998 the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity had an SSCI impact factor of0.188, leading to rank 137 of 161 economics journals, while in 2000 they ranked 3rd with animpact factor of 3.926.


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While there have been numerous journal rankings, there has been compara-tively little research into what actually determines a journal’s reputation withinthe scientific economics community,6 which is the focus of our paper. In addi-tion, we will specifically analyse the relationship between economists’ view oftheir journals (reputation) and their use of these journals for their own work(relevance). For that purpose we have conducted a survey among economistsmainly in Austria, Germany and Switzerland and have asked those economiststo rate various economics journals with regard to their relevance and their rep-utation.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows: Section II presents theanalytical framework and explains our key variables and hypotheses. In SectionIII, we describe the survey methodology and the data, before we present anddiscuss general empirical results in Section IV. Section V contains and dis-cusses empirical results for different groups of respondents, before we drawconclusions in Section VI.

II. ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

The last 30 years have seen a number of both theoretical and empirical studieson journal quality and reputation (see Gans 2000 for an overview). We utilisethese studies to form our hypotheses. Firstly, a journal’s reputation may dependon its relevance for economists’ work, while its usage or relevance for econo-mists’ work may in turn be a function of its reputation. Since journal reputationand relevance are jointly determined one would expect these two variables tobe highly correlated. Journals that enjoy a high reputation will regularly beused, and journals that are regularly used will often enjoy a high reputation.However, it is not uncommon that one also associates a high reputation with ajournal one hardly ever uses, and, vice versa, one may regularly use a journaleven though it does not carry a particularly high reputation. For example, econ-omists specialising in industrial economics may find the Review of IndustrialOrganization highly relevant for their work, even though it may not carry sucha high reputation. Conversely, they may attach a high reputation to the Journalof Monetary Economics, even though they may find it largely irrelevant fortheir own work. Hence, one would expect to find differences in economists’judgements about a journal’s relevance for their work and its reputation. Nev-ertheless, we expect journal reputation to affect its relevance for economists’work and, vice versa, we expect that relevance may affect a journal’s reputation.

6. Notable exceptions are Danielson and Delorme (1976) and Ellis and Durden (1991).



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Therefore, we treat both reputation and relevance as endogenous variables.Both reputation and relevance will depend on a number of factors, which wewill then use as explanatory variables for our analysis. We have identified fivegroups of explanatory variables that may affect journals’ reputation and theirrelevance.

1. Quality Measures

Since quite a number of journal rankings are based on citation frequency asmeasured through scientific impact factors, we will examine how a journal’simpact factor affects its relevance and reputation. We expect that a journal thatis often cited by the world wide scientific community of economists and, there-fore, has a high impact factor should also enjoy a high reputation among Ger-man-speaking economists and be of major relevance for their work. Hence, im-pact factor, reputation and relevance should be positively related, whilejournals with low impact factors should be of lower relevance and enjoy a lowerreputation.

In addition, we examine whether there are effects on journal reputation andrelevance of a journal not being refereed. We would expect a refereed journalto have a better reputation than a non-refereed journal. Moreover, since the ex-istence of a referee process should not only lead to greater expectations aboutquality, but also involve a better selection mechanism and also actually improvea given article’s factual quality through the referees’ comments, we would alsoexpect refereed journals to be of higher relevance for economists’ work.

2. Journal Type

Some studies have also suggested that general and theoretical journals enjoy ahigher reputation than more specialised and applied journals, possibly becausetheory requires a higher level of abstraction. To test for any prejudices in favourof theoretical and quantitative journals, Hawkins, Ritter and Walter (1973) in-cluded two ‘dummy’ journals in their survey of economists. Their non-existentJournal of Economic and Statistical Theory ranked in the top third of all jour-nals they surveyed (24th out of 87) while the equally non-existing RegionalStudies and Economic Change ranked in the bottom third (59th out of 87)7.

7. Danielson and Delorme (1976) and Ellis and Durden (1991) also find support for the hypothesisthat general and theoretical journals are ranked higher than applied and specialised journals.



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Therefore, we will also test for these effects even though there is no obvioustheory which would suggest why general journals should be more reputed.However, we would expect general journals to be more relevant for most econ-omists than specialised journals since specialised journals in a particular sub-field will almost never contain a relevant article for economists working in adifferent area while more general journals will. Hence, general journals shouldbe relevant for a larger fraction of economists than specialised journals, whilespecial journals should only be relevant for a smaller fraction. Researchers maystill have an impression or may have heard from colleagues about the quality ofarticles in a specialised journal though. Hence, given a specialised journal’s rel-evance its reputation should, ceteris paribus, not be any lower than that of a gen-eral journal.

The last two decades have also seen the emergence of a new kind of schol-arly journal such as the Journal of Economic Perspectives, which mainly sum-marises and comments on recent developments in economics, but does notpresent original research. Similar purposes are served by the Journal of Eco-nomic Surveys and the Journal of Economic Literature or Economic Policy,which mainly discusses current policy issues. Overall, there is quite a varietyof these journals, which we classify as report-type journals, as they have incommon that their main focus is not on original research. Since summarisingwork is important, especially with a growing degree of specialisation, manyeconomists may use these kind of journals to obtain an overview over a specialsubfield or some relevant economic policy issue. Therefore, all these journalsmay be viewed as being quite relevant. As it is often the leading economistscommenting on some issue, these report-type journals may also carry a highreputation. On the other hand report-type journals do not present original re-search and, therefore, their relevance and reputation could also be viewed as be-ing lower than for other journals.

3. Home Bias

It has also been reported in parts of the literature that there may be a (positive)home bias among economists towards domestic journals (see Hawkins, Ritterand Walter 1973). While economists may be better informed about the qualityof domestic journals there is no obvious reason why domestic journals shouldbe more or less reputed than foreign journals in general. However, a German-language journal may enjoy a lower reputation than an English-language jour-nal published in Germany. The very fact that an article is published in Germanand not in English, the lingua franca of economics, implies that only relatively



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few economists in the world can actually read the article. This in turn may beregarded as a signal for the author’s own perception of his ideas worth (i.e., theyare not worth being communicated to a larger audience), which may be a signalfor research quality. Even though an empirical study by Brinkmann (2001) in-dicates that the citation frequency of those journals that have switched fromGerman to English may not have increased since, German economists may stillexpect important results to be first published in English (in order to reach alarger part of the scientific community). Because of this signalling factor wesuspect that journals’ reputation would increase with a raising usage of Englishas publication language. Therefore, German-language journals should enjoy alower reputation than German journals that are published in English. On theother hand, we would expect that, compared to foreign journals, German onesmay, ceteris paribus, be more relevant for the work of German-speaking econ-omists because German journals are likely to focus more strongly on issues ofparticular relevance to the German economy and society. Hence, we will testfor effects that both a journal’s country of origin (domestic vs. foreign) and itspublication language have on reputation as well as relevance.

4. Publisher

Firstly, economists may find a journal more relevant for their work if it is pub-lished by some economic association and, because of that fact, the journal isdistributed to a substantial number of economists. Therefore, we will also em-pirically examine whether there are any effects on relevance if a journal is pub-lished by an economic association. In contrast, there does not appear to be anyreason though why, ceteris paribus, an association journal should be more orless reputed than any other journal. Hence, a journal’s reputation should not bedirectly affected.

Secondly, economists may attach a higher reputation to a journal if its pub-lisher already enjoys a higher reputation. That is, the publisher’s brand namemay serve as an umbrella brand for its journals, and the publisher may extendits reputation to its journals. Therefore, we will test for reputation effects in thesense of umbrella branding for the two largest publishers in our sample, Else-vier Science and Blackwell. However, we see no reason why a journal’s partic-ular publisher should have any direct relevance for most economists’ work.



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5. Age and Volume

Since reputation can only develop over time we would expect age to add to ajournal’s reputation. The younger a journal is the less likely it is that the journalhas established a reputation. Hence, age and reputation should be positively re-lated. However, age should not have any direct impact on a journal’s relevancefor most economists’ work.

Finally, the number of articles that a journal publishes per year may affect itsrelevance, even though it should not affect the average article quality which isdecisive for a journal’s reputation. We expect that a journal’s relevance for aneconomist is increasing with the absolute number of articles one finds relevantfor one’s own work. Hence, relevance should – not only, but also – be a functionof the quantity of articles published. In contrast, we would expect that a jour-nal’s reputation reflects readers’ expectations about quality which should belargely independent of quantity. Even if the absolute number of articles is largethe proportion of good articles can be small. Hence, we would expect that rel-evance is positively related to the number of articles published in a journalwhile there should not be a direct effect on reputation.

III. SURVEY METHODOLOGY AND DATA

In order to obtain data on economists’ views about journals’ reputation andtheir relevance, a survey was emailed to a total of 2 223 members of the Vereinfür Socialpolitik (VfS) in May 20008. They were asked to rate either 50, or 100or 150 journals9 on a scale from 0 (lowest) to 5 (highest), separately accordingto (a) a journal’s relevance for their own work and (b) the journal’s reputation.The necessarily incomplete list of 150 journals encompassed most of the jour-nals contained in the most popular international rankings10 plus a number ofjournals that are published in Germany, but not included in international rank-ings.

8. The VfS is the association of German-speaking economists. For more details on the VfS see theOctober 1999 Newsletter of the Royal Economic Society or the VfS weg page http://www.so-cialpolitik.org.

9. All VfS members received three lists (A, B, C) of 50 journals. These were emailed in differentorder (ABC, BCA, CAB), so that a third of the surveyed group received the three lists in orderABC, a third in order BCA and a third in order CAB.

10. We have included all but one journal from the Diamond (1989) list in our survey. 95 of the jour-nals surveyed are listed in the JCR 2000, and 79 of our journals are on Laband and Piette’s(1994) list.



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A total of 430 economists11 (19.3 percent) sent back usable responses thatcontained evaluations of at least three journals from one single list. The jour-nals on lists A, B and C were evaluated by a total of 385, 374 and 373 econo-mists, respectively, even though most of the respondents have not evaluated allof the journals on these lists.

For our empirical analysis we construct a variable, called RELEVANCE, bytaking the percentage of respondents who evaluated a journal’s relevance as a4 or 5. Analogously, we use the percentage of respondents who judge a journal’sreputation as either a 4 or 5 to construct the variable REPUTATION12, 13. Ob-viously, both variables are limited to the interval from 0 to 100%. In fact, theAmerican Economic Review has the highest score for both RELEVANCE andREPUTATION with 60.5% and 96.8%, respectively. At the lower end of thescale are journals with scores as low as 1%.

Regarding citation frequency, we have obtained impact factors from theSSCI for 95 of our journals. However, since not all of our journals are includedin the SSCI, we have proceeded in two steps. In a first step, we have constructeda dummy variable (NONRANK) which is one for the journals not ranked in theSSCI and zero for those included. Then, in a second step, we use the averageSSCI impact factor over the years from 1997 to 2000 to construct the variableIMPACT for the journals that are ranked, while we set IMPACT to zero for thenon-ranked journals since the NONRANK dummy variable captures the re-spondents’ average judgement about reputation and relevance. Values for theIMPACT variable fall between 6.207 (Journal of Economic Literature) and 0.0for the non-ranked journals. The lowest ranked journal has an IMPACT of0.116, and the average impact factor for ranked journals is 0.842. Since settingIMPACT to zero for the non-ranked journals will underestimate the true impactthese journals actually have, we expect NONRANK to positively affect a jour-nal’s relevance and reputation.

11. Of the respondents, 353 hold at least a Ph.D. or doctorate and 130 of them are tenured univer-sity professors with their own chair. Most of the remaining 77 respondents are current Ph. D.students.

12. The percentage of respondents who evaluated a journal’s relevance with 4 or 5 is based on thenumber of respondents for the respective list which contains that journal. In contrast, the per-centage of respondents who rate a journal’s reputation as a 4 or 5 is based on the number ofrespondents for the respective journal itself (the respondent number per journal is given in theTable A1 in the Appendix). The reason for this procedure is that not evaluating a journal on agiven list should imply that a journal is not relevant for this respondent, but it does not neces-sarily imply that the respondent rates the journal’s reputation as zero.

13. To check for the robustness of our specification we also calculate the percentage of respondentswho evaluated a journal’s relevance and reputation as a 3, 4 or 5 and the percentage who eval-uates the journal as a 5.



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Our journal list contains 16 journals that are not refereed, for which we haveset the dummy variable NONREF to one. It should also be noted though thatall of the non-refereed journals happen to be domestic German-language jour-nals which are not ranked in the SSCI.

With respect to a journal’s orientation, we have created the dummy variablesGENERAL, SPECIAL and REPORT and classified all journals into these threecategories. General journals deal with all areas of economics, while specialisedjournals only cover special areas. Report-type journals do not present originalresearch, but rather summarise and comment on research or policy relevant in-formation. All in all, we have classified 31 journals from our list as general, 97as specialised, and 22 as report-type journals. The average impact factor forgeneral journals is 0.637 while it is 0.569 for report-type journals and 0.492 forspecialised journals. In the regressions we have included the dummy variablesSPECIAL and REPORT.

To test for any potential home bias, we create the dummy variable GER-MAN for domestic journals. We consider a journal domestic if its editor or, incase of more than one editor, the majority of its editors are and have been froma German-speaking country. In total, we have classified 36 journals as beingGERMAN which corresponds to 24% of the journals listed.

In addition, we have created a LANGUAGE variable as a number of Ger-man journals only publish English-language articles nowadays in order to en-hance their reach and reputation. Other journals are still entirely publishedin German, while still others again accept articles in both languages. Of the36 domestic journals, there are seven journals that have only published Eng-lish-language articles in 1998 and 1999, while there are 12 journals in whichall articles in 1998 and 1999 were in German. The remaining 17 journals havepublished articles in both English and German language. If a journal has onlypublished German articles, we have set LANGUAGE to one, while zeromeans that there were no German articles in that journal. For journals thathave published both English and German-language articles LANGUAGE isthe percentage of German-language articles that appeared in 1998 and 1999.The average value of LANGUAGE is 0.63 for German journals, its median0.77.

Data on a journal’s attachment to an economic association, place of publica-tion and publishing house can be obtained from the journals themselves. For 30journals we have set that dummy variable ASSOC to one since they are associ-ations’ journals. There are 26 journals on our list which were published by El-sevier Science when we undertook the survey and 25 Blackwell journals. Forthese journals we have set the ELSEVIER or BLACKWELL dummy variableto one, respectively.



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Journals’ age is obtained from either the journals themselves or from vari-ous university libraries. The according variable AGE ranges from 1 (GermanEconomic Review and Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik) to 157 years(Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics), with an average of 40.2years and a median of 29.5 years.

The variable VOLUME is constructed by taking the average number of arti-cles the respective journal has published in 1998 and 1999. Article numbershave partly been obtained from the JCR 2000. If the JCR does not list the jour-nal, we have counted the number of articles ourselves. Average article numbersvary from 7 (Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft) to 224 (Economics Letters),with an average of 44.3 and a median of 34 articles per year.

IV. ESTIMATION AND RESULTS

1. Direct Effects

Our analytical considerations have lead us to specify a system of two simulta-neous equations determining reputation and relevance of economics journals.We estimate the two equations that explain reputation and relevance separatelyand deal with the endogeneity problem by applying a two-stage least square(2SLS) estimator. The two endogenous variables are instrumented by the com-plete set of exogenous variables, and Wald tests indicate the validity of theseinstruments. A further econometric issue arises, as our left hand side variablesare bound between 0 and 100, which may lead to heteroscedasticity. And indeedWhite tests clearly point to heteroscedasticity in all our specifications. So weestimate robust standard errors using White’s method and apply heteroscedas-ticity robust Wald tests.

The results of the estimation are presented in Table 1. At first we present a gen-eral specification which includes all of the potential explanatory variables wehave discussed in the analytical framework. Columns 2 and 3 show the results forthe regressions explaining journal reputation and relevance respectively. As thetwo Wald tests show, the explanatory variables are jointly highly significant inboth regressions. In addition, the results clearly indicate an interaction betweenreputation and relevance: Relevance has a significant positive effect on reputa-tion, and reputation has a significant positive effect on relevance.

Results regarding the exogenous variables are somewhat less clear cut. Eventhough the estimated signs of the coefficients are generally consistent with ourtheoretical considerations, many regressors are not significant. Therefore, wecarefully reduce the general specifications to more parsimonious ones. Resultsare given in columns 4 and 5.



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Table 1

Two-Stage Least Squares (2SLS) Estimation of the Fraction of Researchers who Find a Journal Highly Reputed or Highly Relevant for their Own Work

1 2 3 4 5

General Specification Final Specification

Reputation Relevance Reputation Relevance

Constant 4.69(0.97)

–0.46(0.23)

5.98(1.52)

–0.61(0.36)

RELEVANCE 1.90**(3.85)

1.95**(7.55)

REPUTATION 0.18*(1.78)

0.20**(2.28)

IMPACT 1.10(0.24)

5.73**(2.81)

5.44**(3.52)

NONRANK –3.25(1.36)

2.45**(2.78)

–4.05*(1.79)

2.67**(3.31)

NONREF 6.12*(1.73)

–2.69(1.70)

–2.67**(2.02)

SPECIAL 5.45(1.40)

–3.47**(2.40)

5.52**(2.47)

–3.47**(3.55)

REPORT –4.02(1.07)

–0.17(0.08)

ASSOC 1.12(0.94)

GERMAN –9.10**(3.08)

3.09**(2.48)

–10.63**(4.47)

3.45**(4.31)

LANGUAGE 3.14(1.26)

0.68(0.47)

ELSEVIER 2.26(0.74)

BLACKWELL 4.09(1.59)

AGE 0.07*(1.94)

0.07*(1.94)

VOLUME 0.05*(1.94)

0.05*(2.31)

R2 0.79 0.79 0.78 0.80

Wald 287.16** 243.37** 249.37** 204.07**

Wald(Instruments) 152.05** 121.32** 152.05** 121.32**

White 86.64** 130.10** 60.54** 52.45**

Notes: In parenthesis t-ratios based on heteroscedasticity consistent standard errors. * Significant at the 10% level, ** significant at the 5% level.



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In our parsimonious specifications, all explanatory variables are significant atleast on the 10% level. Both the relevance coefficient in the reputation equationand the reputation coefficient in the relevance equation are highly significantand indicate the strong interrelationship we expected. A 1% increase in the pro-portion of economists that find a journal relevant adds almost 2% to the pro-portion that attach a high reputation to this journal. Conversely, if the fractionof economists that attach a high reputation to a journal increases by 1% an ad-ditional 0.2% also find that journal highly relevant. Given the strong interrela-tionship between the two endogenous variables, the estimated coefficients forthe exogenous variables only show partial effects, as there are direct and indi-rect effects. Therefore, we only briefly discuss the estimated partial (direct) ef-fects before we calculate and discuss the total (direct and indirect) effects.

The impact factor (IMPACT) has a positive effect on a journal’s relevancefor economists’ own work, but no direct impact on reputation. Hence, fre-quently cited journals are used more often, but citations do not directly influ-ence reputation. The dummy variable NONRANK (1 for journals not ranked inthe SSCI) shows a negative effect in the regression explaining reputation and apositive effect in regression explaining relevance. Hence, non-ranked journalshave, given a journal’s relevance, a lower reputation, and they are, given a jour-nal’s reputation, more relevant. In contrast, the dummy variable NONREF (1for non-refereed journals) has a direct negative effect on a journal’s relevance.Regarding journal reputation the effect of NONREF is positive and just signif-icant in the general specification. However, when the insignificant variable RE-PORT is removed from the general specification, NONREF becomes insignif-icant, so that we drop it in the parsimonious specification.

With regard to journal type, we find that the dummy variable SPECIAL (1for specialised journals) has a significant positive coefficient in the regressionexplaining reputation and a significant negative coefficient in the regression ex-plaining relevance. In contrast, the dummy variable REPORT (1 for journalsthat do not publish original research) has no significant effect in either regres-sion. Hence, specialised journals seem to be less relevant and more reputedthan general journals, given everything else. In contrast, report journals are, ce-teris paribus, not judged differently from general journals.

The dummy variable GERMAN (1 for domestic journals) shows a signifi-cant negative effect on journals’ reputation and a significant positive effect onrelevance. Hence, domestic journals are less reputed but more relevant for Ger-man economists than international journals. However, the variable LAN-GUAGE, which stands for the proportion of German-language contributions,is not significant in either regression. This may also be due to the correlationbetween LANGUAGE and GERMAN.



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In the regression explaining reputation, the dummy variables ELSEVIERand BLACKWELL (1 for those two publishers’ respective journals) show nosignificant effect. Hence, there do not appear to be any umbrella branding ef-fects. In contrast, AGE is significant for a journal’s reputation: Journals aremore likely to be well reputed the older they are.

Similarly, the dummy variable ASSOC (1 for journals of a major associa-tion) has no explanatory power for journals’ relevance, while, in contrast, VOL-UME shows a significant and positive effect on a journal’s relevance14.

2. Total Effects

Since reputation affects relevance and relevance has an effect on reputation, theexogenous variables have both a direct and an indirect effect on reputation andon relevance. To obtain the total effects of changes in an exogenous variable wehave solved the system of two simultaneous equations. The resulting total ef-fects are given in Table 2.

Table 2

Total Effects

The impact factor is of major importance in explaining both journal reputationand relevance. The coefficients imply that an increase in the impact factor by0.1 increases the proportion of economists who find the journal well reputed by1.7% while the proportion of researchers that find the journal highly relevantincreases by almost 0.9%. Even though we cannot support the hypothesis thatthe impact factor has any direct effect on a journal’s reputation, our results in-dicate that its total effect on reputation is even higher than the effect on rele-vance.

14. Regression with the two alternative dependent variables (the percentages of respondents whoevaluate a journal with 3, 4 or 5 and only those who rate the journal as 5) basically give thesame results, i.e., the variables have the same signs and nearly all significant variables remainsignificant. Not surprisingly however, the numerical results are different. These results can beobtained from the authors.

Endogenous Exogenous

Impact Nonrank Nonref Special German Age Volume

Reputation 17.25 1.87 –8.43 –2.01 –6.37 0.12 0.14

Relevance 8.85 3.04 –4.33 –3.87 2.19 0.02 0.07



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The total effect of a journal not being ranked in the SSCI is also positive.This is because we have assigned a value of zero to IMPACT for these journals(which underestimates their true impact). Hence, the estimated coefficient maybe interpreted as the respondents’ estimate of these journals’ true impact factor.In that case, the coefficients for IMPACT and NONRANK imply that a non-ranked journal has the same reputation as a ranked journal with an impact fac-tor of 0.108 (the coefficient of non-ranked journals divided by the coefficientof the impact factor). Given that the lowest impact factor of a ranked journal is0.116, non-ranked journals have, ceteris paribus, a lower reputation than anyranked journal.

The relevance of a non-ranked journal would be the same as the relevanceof a ranked journal with an impact factor of 0.344. Given that the journals thatare ranked in the SSCI have an average impact factor of 0.842, the relevance ofnon-ranked journals is well below that of an average ranked journal. In fact,they would fall into the bottom quintile of all ranked journals; only 15 of the 95ranked journals have an impact factor lower than 0.344.

Journals without referee process are both less reputed and less relevant thanrefereed journals. The number of economists that find a journal relevant de-creases by more than 4% if it is not refereed and the number of economists whoconsider the journal well reputed even decreases by 8.5%.

Specialised journals are relevant for a smaller proportion of researchers thangeneral journals. The coefficients imply that about 4% of the economists sur-veyed do, ceteris paribus, find a journal less relevant if it is specialised. Becauseof the strong indirect effect of relevance on reputation specialised journals are,ceteris paribus, also less reputed, as indicated by the negative coefficient in thereduced form. However, the effect on reputation is only half as big as the effecton relevance. Nevertheless, a non-specialised journal will be considered rele-vant by 2% more economists when compared to a specialised journal, all elsebeing equal.

For German-speaking economists, domestic journals are indeed less reputedthan other journals. The coefficient on reputation implies that more than 6% ofthe respondents find a German journal less reputed. To obtain the same reputa-tion as a ranked international journal, a German journal would need an addi-tional impact of 0.369 citations per article. Even more dramatically, to obtainthe same reputation as a non-ranked foreign journal, a ranked German journalwould, ceteris paribus, at least need an impact factor 0.477 (0.108 + 0.369). Inour sample, the Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics has thehighest average impact factor of the German journals that are ranked with avalue of 0.464. Hence, it appears that German journals are even less reputedthan the non-ranked foreign journals in our sample. In any case, there is a sig-



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nificant goodwill discount for domestic journals among German-speakingeconomists. This seems to confirm the old German saying that ‘prophets are notheld good in their own country’.

While domestic journals are less reputed, they are nevertheless consideredmore relevant than foreign journals, as the negative indirect effect (via reputa-tion) is not large enough to outweigh the positive direct effect on relevance.Hence, the total effect on relevance is still positive, even though the total effectis smaller than the direct effect.

Age and volume both do increase a journal’s reputation and relevance. After10 years the proportion of researchers that attach a high reputation to a journalhas grown by 1.2%. The total effect on relevance is almost negligible, however,as only 0.2% more economists consider the journal relevant after 10 years.Adding around 14 to 15 articles per year will also add another 1% to the pro-portion of researchers who find the journal relevant. The indirect effect on rep-utation implies that the proportion of researchers that assign a high reputationto the journal would increase by twice the number, i.e., 2%.

IV. RESULTS FOR DIFFERENT AGE GROUPS

Previous studies have found that judgements about journals’ reputation appearto vary with respondents’ age (see, e.g., Hawkins, Ritter and Walter 1973). Andthere are certainly good reasons for such age specific differences. First of all,older researchers are naturally more experienced, and they may, therefore,judge journals differently. Secondly, there are different incentives in academiaat different stages of one’s career and, hence, age15. To check for parameter ho-mogeneity we have re-estimated our final specifications for four different agegroups, i.e., economists under 35, between 35 and 45, between 45 and 55, and55 and over. The endogenous variable is the proportion of respondents that as-sign a high relevance or reputation to the journal in that age group. We then useWald tests to check whether the estimated coefficients are significantly differ-ent from those estimated for the entire sample.

Maybe surprisingly, in all but two cases the null hypothesis of parameter ho-mogeneity cannot be rejected at the 5% significance level. The notable excep-tions are the relevance equations for economists aged 55 and over and for those

15. Indeed in the ranking based on our survey some individual journals are ranked very differentlyby different age groups. For example, economists aged 55 and over rank Kyklos on place 4among all journals and on place 1 among the German journals, while economists younger than35 rank it on places 38 and 7, respectively.



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younger than 35. A closer inspection shows that it is only one parameter whereyoung and old economist are significantly different from the average: A journalbeing German. Over all economists, the direct effect of GERMAN is about 3.5,as given in Table 1. This means that, given reputation, the proportion of re-searchers who find a journal highly relevant increases by 3.5% when the jour-nal is published in a German-speaking country. For economists under 35 thecoefficient is only 1.7, i.e., the effect is only half as big. In contrast, for econo-mists 55 and over the coefficient has a value of 9.3 and is, therefore, almostthree times the average. Given this strong effect on relevance, the total effecton reputation also becomes positive. That is, in contrast to their younger col-leagues the economists aged 55 and over do not only consider domestic jour-nals more relevant, but among the older economists domestic journals alsocarry a higher reputation than foreign ones, everything else being equal.

V. CONCLUSION

Our study indicates that, while there is a strong interrelationship between econ-omists’ views on journals’ reputation and relevance, the two are not the same.We have found that a journal’s reputation directly influences economists’ viewon that journal’s relevance and vice versa. However, the effect relevance has onreputation is much stronger than the effect reputation has on relevance. Thecites a journal receives as measured through the SSCI impact factor directly af-fect journal relevance while there is no direct effect on reputation. Neverthe-less, the total effect on reputation is twice as big as the total effect on relevance.Furthermore, journals that are not included in the SSCI enjoy a lower reputa-tion than the journals that are included. More specifically, they enjoy the samereputation as journals with a measured impact factor of 0.108, which is lessthan the impact factor of any economics journal actually included in the SSCI.Similarly, journals without referee process are considered less relevant, andthey therefore only enjoy a lower reputation as well.

Special journals are less relevant for economists’ work and also less reputedthan general journals, even though the direct effect of specialisation on reputa-tion is positive. Domestic journals are more relevant for the work of German-speaking economists, but they are, at the same time, dramatically less reputedamong German-speaking economists than foreign journals, everything else be-ing equal.

Age and the number of articles both positively affect a journal’s reputationand relevance. However, the number of articles directly only affects a journal’srelevance while there are only indirect effects on reputation. In contrast, age is



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almost irrelevant for economists’ view on a journal’s relevance, but – like redwine – journals are the better the older they are, at least in the eyes of econo-mists.

APPENDIX

Table A1

Data

Reputation Relevance #Eval. Impact Lang. Dummies Age Volume

Actual Residual Actual Residual

Allg Stat Archiv 8.42 –1.71 3.22 –1.43 202 0.00 0.67 S, D 111 21

American Econ Rev* 96.84 –32.55 60.52 25.37 380 1.79 0.00 A 90 151.5

Am J Agric Econ 13.51 –7.09 2.14 –4.49 148 0.50 0.00 S, A 82 118

An d’eco & de statist 7.45 2.30 1.61 –3.89 161 0.00 0.00 A 15 43.5

Applied Econ 17.43 –8.05 6.49 –1.33 241 0.23 0.00 S 32 159.5

Applied Econ Letters 4.32 –8.26 0.80 –4.67 185 0.13 0.00 S 7 177

App Financial Econ 3.97 –5.97 1.34 –0.99 151 0.00 0.00 S 12 65.5

Aussenwirtschaft 6.10 –0.87 3.64 –0.48 246 0.00 0.54 S, D 56 19.5

Australian Econ Rev 3.70 –0.74 0.53 –4.17 162 0.00 0.00 B 34 42.5

Aust J Agric Econ 2.40 –13.98 1.34 1.74 125 0.39 0.00 S, B 45 24

Brookings Papers* 53.50 7.30 20.00 0.85 286 1.58 0.00 R 31 13.5

Cambridge J Econ 18.87 4.26 4.01 –5.38 212 0.83 0.00 25 39.5

Canadian J Econ* 24.07 4.68 6.17 –2.16 241 0.29 0.00 B 33 57

Cato J 6.08 –5.88 2.08 0.89 181 0.00 0.00 S 20 31

Const Pol Economy 8.88 –7.76 4.81 3.43 169 0.00 0.00 S 11 23

WISU 2.60 –1.30 5.90 –7.08 308 0.00 1.00 R, D, N 29 213

Die Weltwirtschaft 7.84 4.23 4.94 –0.40 255 0.00 1.00 R, D, N 51 21

DIW Vierteljah 4.21 –2.91 5.88 0.42 261 0.00 0.41 R, D, N 74 39.5

Econometric J 30.34 14.07 4.29 –1.02 178 0.00 0.00 S, B 20 16

Econometric Theory 46.05 21.22 6.75 –3.06 215 0.46 0.00 S 16 50.5

Econometrica* 93.39 24.33 27.53 0.30 333 1.97 0.00 S, A, B 68 47.5

Econ Inquiry* 10.09 –0.84 1.60 –5.15 218 0.57 0.00 39 49.5

Econ J * 69.86 8.35 24.93 1.31 292 1.30 0.00 A, B 110 74.5

Econ Modelling 13.74 –1.62 1.82 0.48 182 0.25 0.00 S, E 18 30

Econ Policy 27.80 –2.37 12.33 0.89 223 1.10 0.00 R, B 16 12

Econ Record 4.60 –7.40 0.78 –2.28 174 0.27 0.00 A 76 29



192

Econ Systems 4.35 –8.00 1.87 1.52 161 0.00 0.00 S, E 31 20

Econ Theory 37.61 12.87 6.97 –2.11 226 0.44 0.00 S 9 74

Economica* 38.02 11.62 8.02 –3.42 263 0.58 0.00 B 80 30.5

Econ Letters 37.10 –13.94 22.79 4.59 283 0.25 0.00 E 23 224

Empirica 10.09 4.71 3.90 –1.03 228 0.00 0.03 S, D, A 27 20

Empirical Econ 11.79 –8.98 6.42 4.06 212 0.00 0.00 S 25 32

European Econ Rev * 60.92 –7.49 31.37 11.32 325 0.84 0.00 A, E 32 89

Europ J Law & Econ 15.90 1.84 3.64 0.67 195 0.00 0.00 S 7 27.5

Europ J Pol Economy 20.61 –6.36 9.89 5.36 262 0.00 0.00 S, E 17 41.5

Expl in Econ Hist 6.15 –11.81 2.41 1.60 130 0.53 0.00 S 38 17.5

Finanzarchiv 20.36 –7.21 11.95 4.94 280 0.00 0.17 S, D 117 21

Games & Econ Behav 39.90 9.70 9.63 0.21 208 0.54 0.00 S 13 59

Gen Pap Risk & Ins Th 6.54 –10.03 2.14 2.51 153 0.36 0.00 S 26 10.5

German Econ Rev 20.08 5.49 12.42 1.78 264 0.00 0.00 A, D, B 1 26

Hamburger Jahrb 3.08 1.71 4.01 –0.07 227 0.00 1.00 R, D, N 45 14

Homo Oeconomicus 2.87 8.13 1.61 –3.47 174 0.00 0.27 R, D, N 18 37

ifo-Studien 3.64 –3.66 7.01 –0.68 302 0.00 0.77 D 46 32.5

Industrial Relations 5.84 –9.64 1.07 –3.20 154 1.09 0.00 S, B 40 27.5

Inform Econ & Policy 1.52 –9.31 1.61 1.66 132 0.00 0.00 S, E 17 23.5

intereconomics 0.99 7.13 0.52 –4.16 203 0.00 0.00 R, D, N 35 36.5

Intern Econ Rev* 50.00 16.52 13.10 –2.83 250 0.80 0.00 B 41 50.5

Intern J Forecasting 7.53 –8.84 2.41 1.03 146 0.46 0.00 S, E 16 32.5

Intern J Ind Org 30.84 –9.82 14.81 8.03 227 0.50 0.00 S, A, E 18 45

Intern J Social Econ 7.91 –4.67 2.14 –2.80 139 0.00 0.00 S 27 106

Intern Labour Rev 9.36 –5.05 2.68 1.64 171 0.43 0.00 S 80 20.5

Inter Rev Law & Econ 13.48 –5.67 3.38 0.90 178 0.45 0.00 S, E 20 31.5

Intern Tax & Publ Fin 20.45 0.90 7.75 4.00 176 0.46 0.00 S, A 7 28

Jahrb Neue Pol Ök 11.17 –0.65 6.70 4.72 206 0.00 0.83 S, D, N 19 9

Jahrb für Regionalw 2.27 5.04 2.86 0.06 176 0.00 0.64 S, D 21 7

Jahrb Wirtschaftsw 6.33 –8.97 3.74 –3.78 237 0.00 0.79 D 51 17

Jahrb Nat & Stat 17.82 –3.25 11.53 1.85 303 0.12 0.76 D 138 59.5

J Accounting & Econ 11.89 4.94 1.56 –1.28 143 0.58 0.00 S, E 22 31.5

J Banking & Finance 30.73 3.71 6.95 –1.17 192 0.50 0.00 S, E 24 75

J Business 25.77 2.06 3.22 –4.95 163 1.16 0.00 S 73 18.5





193

J Bus & Econ Stat 29.05 –12.27 7.79 –1.24 178 0.97 0.00 S, A 18 46

J Com Market Studies 4.19 –8.83 1.60 –3.62 167 1.28 0.00 S, B 39 33.5

J Comparative Econ 8.64 –10.65 2.68 –0.87 162 0.80 0.00 S 24 34.5

J Cultural Econ 2.17 1.92 2.34 2.26 138 0.00 0.00 S 25 23.5

J Develop Econ* 26.37 26.65 6.15 –1.17 201 0.59 0.00 S, E 27 66

J Econometrics* 63.48 –7.24 12.47 –5.34 230 1.00 0.00 S, E 28 86

J Econ Behav & Org 37.60 2.73 16.84 6.21 242 0.44 0.00 S, E 21 107.5

J Econ Develop 17.79 15.43 3.49 0.34 163 0.00 0.00 S 25 23

J Econ Dyn & Contr 43.72 –11.63 8.31 –2.05 231 0.53 0.00 S, E 22 64.5

J Econ Education 3.73 4.96 1.34 1.21 134 0.31 0.00 S 31 39.5

J Econ Growth 25.43 6.37 6.97 2.63 173 0.00 0.00 S 6 16

J Econ History 26.79 –23.07 2.86 –4.14 168 0.73 0.00 S 60 40.5

J Econ Literature* 87.28 –18.48 52.67 1.40 338 6.21 0.00 R, A 38 18.5

J Econ Perspectives* 64.82 –0.69 39.68 8.80 307 2.97 0.00 R, A 14 55

J Econ Surveys 9.86 30.25 4.42 –0.54 213 0.00 0.00 R, B 14 21

J Econ Theory* 79.02 –8.41 18.45 –0.90 286 0.69 0.00 S 32 90

J Econ &Mgmt Strat 14.77 2.24 6.17 3.49 149 0.51 0.00 S 9 23

J Econ (Z Nat-ök) 20.45 –5.91 9.61 –0.03 308 0.21 0.00 D 71 35.5

J Env Econ & Manag 24.26 –6.19 9.09 0.25 169 1.21 0.00 S 27 34

J Evolutionary Econ 15.46 33.31 5.35 2.99 194 0.46 0.00 S 10 19

J Finance 68.24 20.81 10.46 –15.65 233 2.43 0.00 S, A 56 77

J Financial Econ* 46.94 –0.93 7.01 –11.26 196 1.97 0.00 S, E 27 52

J Finan Quant Analy 18.37 –4.86 3.21 –1.11 147 0.64 0.00 S 35 28.5

J Forecasting 12.24 –1.79 2.68 1.01 147 0.36 0.00 S 19 30.5

J Health Econ 17.68 0.75 3.90 –8.37 164 2.04 0.00 S, E 19 39

J Industrial Econ 33.49 –4.46 9.63 1.58 215 0.82 0.00 S, B 48 22.5

JITE 32.07 9.33 15.82 1.77 290 0.46 0.00 D 157 52

J Intern Econ* 48.32 2.84 13.51 –0.62 238 1.17 0.00 S, E 30 50

J Intern Money & Fin 26.26 9.48 5.88 –0.57 179 0.59 0.00 S, E 20 47

J Labor Econ* 42.18 15.81 10.72 –1.07 211 1.11 0.00 S, A 18 33

J Law & Econ* 47.14 –3.05 9.09 –3.68 210 1.13 0.00 S 43 30

J Law, Econ & Org 22.16 1.30 6.95 –0.62 185 1.14 0.00 S 16 23.5

J Macroecon 22.28 19.15 4.56 1.20 193 0.21 0.00 S 22 41.5

J Mathematical Econ* 37.68 25.33 3.12 –4.32 207 0.31 0.00 S, E 27 52.5





194

J Monetary Econ * 66.38 13.51 14.71 –2.02 229 1.00 0.00 S, E 26 50

J Mon, Cred & Bank 48.28 –7.94 11.26 –1.40 232 0.98 0.00 S 32 41

J Political Economy* 87.92 –5.05 42.60 9.52 331 2.59 0.00 109 48.5

J Population Econ 14.29 –8.65 4.01 1.70 182 0.41 0.00 S, A 14 29.5

J Post-Keynes Econ 8.74 5.75 2.68 1.48 183 0.37 0.00 S 23 34

J Public Econ Theory 22.98 11.70 5.45 1.29 161 0.00 0.00 S, A, B 2 23

J Public Econ 62.86 –6.12 19.79 3.35 245 0.78 0.00 S, E 29 85

J Regional Science 17.20 –5.05 5.09 1.52 186 0.52 0.00 S, B 40 31.5

J Regulatory Econ 9.79 –7.52 3.12 2.00 143 0.35 0.00 S 10 30.5

J Risk & Insurance 16.46 –3.50 3.48 0.64 158 0.44 0.00 S, A 37 28

J Am Stat Assoc 57.23 27.97 7.51 –7.82 173 0.00 0.00 S, A 113 120

J Urban Econ 12.64 –7.42 3.90 –0.95 182 0.80 0.00 S 27 46.5

Konjunkturpol 6.75 4.18 4.55 –0.37 252 0.00 0.58 R, D, N 47 16.5

Kredit und Kapital 8.90 3.89 3.49 –1.25 236 0.00 0.83 S, D 33 21

Kyklos 25.00 2.45 12.47 1.61 316 0.36 0.00 D, B 54 24.5

Labour Econ 18.59 –4.00 8.02 4.59 199 0.00 0.00 S, A, E 7 26

Land Econ 10.29 –9.89 2.14 –3.28 136 1.04 0.00 S 76 39.5

Leviathan 5.08 9.71 1.56 –3.53 177 0.00 1.00 R, D, N 28 27.5

List Forum 1.69 2.18 4.28 –0.12 236 0.00 1.00 R, D, A, N 12 27

Metroecon 2.01 5.93 1.07 –5.55 149 0.00 0.00 D, B 51 16

National Tax J 14.20 –9.25 4.68 0.39 176 0.64 0.00 S, A 53 46.5

Open Economies Rev 6.33 –8.70 1.87 2.67 158 0.17 0.00 S 12 25

ORDO 11.11 2.34 7.51 1.45 234 0.00 0.98 R, D, N 53 22.5

Ox Bul Econ & Stat 18.92 –6.20 5.19 0.92 222 0.56 0.00 S, B 62 35

Oxford Econ Papers* 35.21 10.04 8.02 –4.04 267 0.74 0.00 63 37

Ox Rev Econ Pol 20.20 0.47 6.97 –1.43 203 0.65 0.00 R 16 32.5

Persp der Wi-pol 11.16 –1.01 11.18 2.89 233 0.00 1.00 R, D, B 1 13

Public Choice 37.70 –3.03 14.21 5.22 251 0.29 0.00 S 35 89.5

Public Finance 23.76 1.83 5.90 1.30 202 0.00 0.00 S 55 29

Public Fin Quarterly 10.71 –5.36 3.90 1.84 168 0.00 0.00 S 28 30

Quarterly J Econ * 88.25 0.99 37.97 –1.08 315 3.74 0.00 115 41

RAND J Econ * 67.58 14.61 20.64 4.00 256 1.04 0.00 S 31 37.5

Reg Sc & Urb Econ 18.92 –7.93 7.27 3.41 185 0.49 0.00 S, E 30 34.5

Regional Studies 7.10 –12.64 3.48 –2.27 169 0.95 0.00 S 34 72





195

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197

SUMMARY

We analyse the interrelationship between economics journals’ relevance and reputation. While repu-tation and relevance positively affect each other, relevance has a much stronger impact on reputationthan reputation on relevance. Citation frequency is a key determinant for both journal reputation andrelevance, but effects on journal reputation are nearly twice as strong. Specialised journals are, cete-ris paribus, considered less relevant and, therefore, also less reputed, even though specialisation hasa positive direct effect on reputation. German-speaking economists find German journals more rele-vant, but at the same time also less reputed than foreign journals. Age and volume effects are alsoanalysed.

ZUSAMMENFASSUNG

In diesem Aufsatz wird die Interdependenz zwischen der Relevanz und der Reputation ökonomischerFachzeitschriften untersucht. Unsere empirische Untersuchung zeigt, dass sich beide Größen zwargegenseitig positiv beeinflussen, die Relevanz einer Zeitschrift jedoch einen wesentlich größerenEinfluss auf ihre Reputation hat als umgekehrt. Die Zitationshäufigkeit ist ein wesentlicher Bestim-mungsfaktor sowohl für Reputation als auch für Relevanz, wobei der Einfluss auf die Reputation fastzweimal so groß ist. Spezialisierte Zeitschriften werden, ceteris paribus, als weniger relevant erachtetals nicht spezialisierte Journale. Deswegen genießen erstere insgesamt auch eine geringere Reputa-tion, obwohl ein positiver direkter Einfluss der Spezialisierung auf die Reputation vorliegt. Deutsch-sprachige Ökonomen finden zudem deutsche Zeitschriften relevanter als ausländische Journale, aberzugleich auch weniger reputierlich. Des weiteren werden die Auswirkungen des Alters einer Zeit-schrift und der Anzahl der publizierten Artikel untersucht.

RÉSUMÉ

Dans cet essai, nous analysons l’interdépendance entre la réputation et la pertinence des journauxéconomiques. Notre recherche empirique montre que les deux facteurs aggissent réciproquement demanière positive, la pertinence d’un journal ayant cependant plus de répercussion sur sa réputationque vice-versa. La fréquence de citation est un levier essentiel tant pour la renommée que pour lapertinence, mais l’effet produit sur la renommée est environ deux fois plus fort. Les journaux spé-cialisés ceteris paribus sont considérés moins pertinents et jouissent par conséquent d’une moindreréputation, même s’il existe une influence directe de la spécialisation sur la réputation. Les écono-mistes germanophones jugent les magazines allemands plus pertinents des journaux étrangers, maisils les considèrent en même temps moins réputés. Finalement sont analysés les effets de l’anciennetéd’un magazine ainsi que du nombre des articles publiés.


Reputation and Relevance of Economics Journals

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