On measuring scholarly influence by citations
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TL;DR
The paper proposes a new approach that is grounded on a theoretical “influence function,” representing explicit prior beliefs about how citations reflect influence, and conditions are derived for robust qualitative comparisons of influence.
Abstract
Abstract Bibliometric measures based on citations are widely used in assessing the scientific publication records of authors, institutions and journals. Yet currently favored measures lack a clear theoretical foundation and are known to have counter-intuitive properties. The paper proposes a new approach that is grounded on a theoretical “influence function, ” representing explicit prior beliefs about how citations reflect influence. Conditions are derived for robust qualitative comparisons of influence—conditions that can be implemented using readily-available data. Two examples are provided, one using the world’s top-10 economics department, the other using the top-10 economics journals.