Abstract
We examine the relative strength of short-term citation counts, bibliometric measures such as journal impact factors, and journal rankings in terms of predicting long-run citations. Using a set of articles published in sixty of the highest reputation economics journals in 1994, we find that citations received over fairly short windows (between 1 and 2 years after publication) are much stronger predictors of long-run citation counts compared with journal impact factors or other journal rankings. Our results are robust to a series of robustness checks. These findings suggest department heads and tenure and promotion committees should place greater weight on short-term citations as opposed to article placement when making personnel decisions.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Laural Ivary for her excellent research assistance and Theresa Nawalaniec for her help working with the Social Sciences Citation Index.
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Kosteas, V.D. Predicting long-run citation counts for articles in top economics journals. Scientometrics 115, 1395–1412 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2703-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-018-2703-0