1. ‘Many-Citedness’: Citations Measure More Than Just Scientific Impact
- Author:
- Carlo D'Ippoliti
- Publication Date:
- 05-2017
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET)
- Abstract:
- Citation indexes are increasingly used to measure the scientific impact of researchers and institutions, though their application is often criticized. Most authors agree that citations do not measure only scientific quality; there is disagreement however on what else they do capture. We study the network of citations of all publications indexed in Web of Science authored or coauthored by Italian tenured academic economists between 2011 and 2015. By estimating the determinants of the probability that any author is cited by any other author in the sample, we find those factors to involve not only similarity in methods and topics but also, significantly, various measures of social community as well as of ideological proximity. We conclude that, at least in the case of economics, citations cannot be interpreted as unbiased proxies of scientific impact, and their use to produce indexes and rankings may require careful rethinking.
- Topic:
- Science and Technology, Research, Academia, Community, and Citation
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus