CITATIONS OF MOST OFTEN CITED ECONOMISTS: DO SCHOLARLY BOOKS MATTER MORE THAN QUALITY JOURNALS? J ANG C. J IN * George Mason University – Korea Songdo Campus E. K WAN CHOI Iowa State University Abstract. This paper empirically investigates the determinants of citations based on the publication of the top 100 most often cited economists. The effects of publication age and author fame on subsequent citations are found to be positive and significant. Citations are also significantly affected by popular subfields in economics. However, journal quality measures, such as impact factors, download statistics and top-4 elite journals, have insignificant effects on citations. In contrast, the citation effect of scholarly books is positive and significant, and its impact is even greater than those of journal quality measures. 1. INTRODUCTION Economists use academic outlets such as journals or books to disseminate their research outputs. Based on the research outputs published in academic journals, economists have long been ranked individually, as well as collectively (e.g. Graves et al., 1982; Dusansky and Vernon, 1998; Jin, 2009). These rankings are based solely on journal publications that have passed a stringent peer review process. 1 It is, however, widely known that the prevailing editorial refereeing practices especially in top-tier journals act like risk averters and thus often exclude newly developed cutting-edge research. Quality research papers are often published in non-refereed journals and books. This trend was even more prominent in the old days. While working as a patent clerk, Albert Einstein (1905) published his revolutionary work on ‘special relativity’ in Annalen der Physik without any peer review. 2 Kenneth Arrow published his dissertation ‘Social Choice and Individual Values’ in 1951, and his seminal work on risk aversion was published in the book Aspects of the Theory of Risk-Bearing in 1965. Although influential and highly cited in the literature, scholarly books are seldom counted as part of research productivity in the economics profession. For example, Laband and Piette (1994a) rank the quality of economics journals, *Address for Correspondence: Department of Economics, George Mason University-Korea Songdo Campus, Songo, Incheon, South Korea. E-mail: jininhk@gmail.com. We thank David Ahlstrom, David Laband and Andrew Oswald for email discussions and valuable comments on the contents of this paper. We also thank anonymous referees and the Editor of the Journal for helpful comments and suggestions. 1 Jin (2010) shows that economic growth has a positive effect on research publications. 2 The first of the so-called annus mirabilis (a Latin phrase meaning ‘wonderful year’) papers had not received any peer reviews, nor did the first paper contain any references. In those days, the burden of proofreading was known as an opposing side against authors. In later years, Albert Einstein had an ongoing fight with Physical Reviews. bs_bs_banner P acific Economic Review, 19: 1 (2014) pp. 8–24 doi: 10.1111/1468-0106.12049 © 2014 Wiley Publishing Asia Pty Ltd