The global distribution of authorship in economics journals
研究了1980年以来经济学和商业期刊论文的作者分布，发现低收入国家作者占比极低，且几乎只出现在排名100名之后的期刊，即使文章质量相同，发展中国家作者在顶级期刊发表的可能性也远低于美国作者。
• The representation of authors from low-income countries remains extremely low. • Developing country representation has risen almost only at journals ranked 100th or lower. • Developing country authors are far less likely to be published in top journals even when holding constant article quality. • Authors in the U.S. receive far more citations compared to authors from developing countries. • Authors from developing countries remain excluded from top-rated journals and receive less attention from other economists. We assemble a dataset of the universe of economics and business journal articles published since 1980 to assess differences in the levels and trends of the global distribution of authorship in economics journals and citations by country/region, quality of journal, and fields of specialization. We document striking imbalances. While Western and Northern European authors have made substantial gains, the representation of authors based in low-income countries remains extremely low − an order of magnitude lower than the weight of their countries or regions in the global economy. Fields such as international or development economics where global diversification may have been expected have not experienced much increase in developing country authorship. Developing country representation has risen fastest at journals ranked 100th or lower, while it has barely increased in journals ranked 25th or higher. Regression analyses suggest that articles by developing country authors are far less likely to be published in top journals even when holding constant article quality (as proxied by citation counts). Similar trends are observed in citation patterns, with articles by authors in the U.S. receiving far more citations, and those by authors in developing countries receiving fewer. These results are consistent with a general increase in the relative supply of research in the rest of the world. But they also indicate authors from developing countries remain excluded from the profession’s top-rated journals and that their research receives less attention from other economists.