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German Economic Review 9(4): 402–430

A Ranking of Journals in Economics and Related Fields
Klaus Ritzberger
Vienna Graduate School of Finance and Institute for Advanced Studies

Abstract. This paper presents an update of the ranking of economics journals by the invariant method, as introduced by Palacio-Huerta and Volij, with a broader sample of journals. By comparison with the two other most prominent rankings, it also proposes a list of ‘target journals’, ranked according to their quality, as a standard for the field of economics. JEL classification: A12, A14. Keywords: Journal ranking; economics journals; business administration journals; finance journals, citations.

1. INTRODUCTION
The ranking of professional journals in economics has attracted growing ´ interest during the past decade (see Kalaitzidakis et al., 2003; Koczy and Strobel, 2007; Kodrzycki and Yu, 2006; Laband and Piette, 1994; Liebowitz and Palmer, 1984; Liner and Amin, 2006; Palacio-Huerta and Volij, 2004). Journal rankings have been used to evaluate the research performance of economics departments (e.g. Bommer and Ursprung, 1998; Combes and Linnemer, 2003; Lubrano et al., 2003) and of individual economists (e.g. ´ Coupe, 2003). They provide ‘objective’ information about the quality of publications in a world where academic publications have reached an overwhelming extent and variety. While half a century ago a well-trained economist may have comprehended all key developments in economics at large, today it is difficult to follow even the pace of subfields. Thus, the judgment by an individual academic is accurate only in so far as it concerns her or his own field of specialization. Still, hiring, tenure, promotion and funding decisions should ideally be based on judgments of scientific quality, even when expertise about the specializations of all candidates is unavailable. For that reason economists have turned to journal rankings as a substitute for a direct judgment of scientific quality of

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