Retraction Watch reports that several history of economics journals are complaining because Clarivate Analytics dropped them from its journal rankings. The reason was that Clarivate was concerned that the journal editors might have been adding citations from each others' journals, in effect committing fraud. The journals include the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, the Journal of the History of Economic Thought , and the History of Economic Ideas.
The Retraction Watch article is critical of the use of impact factors and journal rankings more generally, which is a point well taken.
The technique that Clarivate used to identify the pattern was to identify the sources of the citations of articles in the journals. It turned out that almost all of the citations were in each of the other journals.
The technique that Clarivate used to identify the pattern was to identify the sources of the citations of articles in the journals. It turned out that almost all of the citations were in each of the other journals.
It is unfair to jump to conclusions about the editors, but that sort of collusion would, if it has occurred, be consistent with the entire structure of higher education, which I have witnessed over the past 30 years.
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