Oswald, Andrew J. (2009) World-leading research and its measurement. Working Paper. Coventry: University of Warwick, Department of Economics. (Warwick economic research papers.

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Abstract

Journalists and others have asked me whether the favourable RAE 2008 results for UK economics are believable. This is a fair question. It also opens up a broader and more important one: how can we design a bibliometric method to assess the quality (rather than merely quantity) of a nation’s science? To try to address this, I examine objective data on the world’s most influential economics articles. I find that the United Kingdom performed reasonably well over the 2001-2008 period. Of 450 genuinely world-leading journal articles, the UK produced 10% of them -- and was the source of the most-cited article in each of the Journal of Econometrics, the International Economic Review, the Journal of Public Economics, and the Rand Journal of Economics, and of the second most-cited article in the Journal of Health Economics. Interestingly, more than a quarter of these world-leading UK articles came from outside the best-known half-dozen departments. Thus the modern emphasis on ‘top’ departments and the idea that funding should be concentrated in a few places may be mistaken. Pluralism may help to foster iconoclastic ideas.

Item Type:	Working or Discussion Paper (Working Paper)
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Divisions:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Economics
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Research Assessment Exercise (Great Britain), Research -- Evaluation, Education, Higher -- Research -- Great Britain, Bibliographical citations, Higher education and state -- Great Britain
Series Name:	Warwick economic research papers
Publisher:	University of Warwick, Department of Economics
Place of Publication:	Coventry
Date:	14 January 2009
Number:	No.887
Number of Pages:	20
Status:	Not Peer Reviewed
Access rights to Published version:	Open Access
Funder:	Economic and Social Research Council (Great Britain) (ESRC)
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URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/1330

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