Abstract
In this short note we recall the history and definition of the repeat rate, also known as the Hirschman–Herfindahl index or as the Simpson index, and show that its generalization to a measure that includes disparity between items, known as the Rao-Stirling index, or a monotone transformation of it, is an acceptable diversity measure which, however, does not meet the ‘monotonicity of balance’ requirement.
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Acknowledgement
We thank Loet Leydesdorff for helpful observations about an earlier version of this note.
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Rousseau, R. The repeat rate: from Hirschman to Stirling. Scientometrics 116, 645–653 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2724-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2724-8