An analysis of authors and institutions contributing to The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1981-1993

American Journal of Economics and Sociology, The, Oct, 1993 by Mostafa Mehdizadeh

I

Introduction

IN RECENT YEARS, economists and sociologists have devoted much effort to analyzing the publishing performance of academic journals. A justification for such studies is to assist potential authors in selecting journals suitable for the submission of their articles. In addition, such analyses provide information regarding the quality and the nature of research of typical contributors and the identities of their employing institutions. This information may be helpful to both job applicants and degree-seeking students. The following research reviews reflect some of the research conducted in this area: Moore and Taylor (1980), Kau and Johnson (1983), Niemi (1987), Durden and Marlin (1990), Shogren and Durden (1990), Allen and Kau (1991), and Durden (1991).

The American Journal of Economics and Sociology (AJES) was founded in 1941 with the primary goal of promoting "interdisciplinary cooperation, team work, integration and synthesis in the social sciences, and social philosophy as a means of bringing the fundamental economic, social, and political problems of representative democratic society under rational control."(1) To achieve an interdisciplinary approach in social science, the founder of the journal, Dr. Will Lissner, recruited editorial board members from the disciplines of sociology, philosophy, and economics in equal numbers (four from each area).(2) This paper attempts to examine the publishing performance of individual contributors and institutional contributors, the factors of geography and disciplines, in The American Journal of Economics and Sociology for the period of January 1981 to April 1993, inclusive.(3) This effort may satisfy a natural curiosity of those who are interested in the interdisciplinary approach in social science.

In this study, when there was a single author, each author, institution, institutional class, and author's discipline was assigned its designated number of articles and the number of pages. When there were co-authors, proportional credit was assigned, i.e., a single co-author received a .5 per article and .5 of the pages. This adjustment (weighted method) was used for all of the tables. The short-notes by the current editor-in-chief of the journal, which were informational in nature, were not included in any classification used.

II

Contribution by Institutional Class and Author's Field of Specialization

ALTHOUGH A LARGE AND DIVERSE NUMBER OF INSTITUTIONS contributed articles to AJES, the majority of them by far are United States academic institutions. Table 1 reveals that 558 papers and 6312 pages were produced by 225 United States academic institutions, 49 foreign institutions (academic, government, and private), 17 United States private organizations, 5 United States government agencies, and 2 other institutions. Over the 12-year period, United States academic institutions account for 80% of the papers and of the total number of pages. The foreign contributors share of papers and number of pages is 15% of the total, which does reflect a notable international influence in the journal. The portion of United States government agencies in publication in the AJES has been limited to seven articles.

In Table 2, the number of articles and total number of pages published in AJES are arranged according to the Carnegie Foundation system of classification of the United States academic institutions.(4) This classification provides a better understanding about the quality of the contributing institutions although there will be wide variations of quality within any one category and much overlap of quality among categories.

Table 2 shows that while large institutions (Research 1 category) provide a significant portion of contributions (about 19% of total papers and pages), the greatest share of contributions to AJES comes from the faculties of universities in the Comprehensive 1 category (28%). Thus, one conclusion from Table 2 is that many contributors from smaller institutions, probably with less financial support for research and scholarship, have a good opportunity to publish in AJES.

TABULAR DATA OMITTED

Since foreign contributors account for the rather large percentages of papers and number of pages published in AJES, a look at the geographic distribution of foreign contributors is interesting.

Table 3 shows the geographic locations of foreign contributors. In Table 3, we observe that foreign contributors from 49 foreign institutions (most of them academic institutions) in 17 foreign countries contributed articles to AJES. Among the foreign contributors, the authors from Canada, Australia, and Germany had the greatest shares (a combined 58% share of foreign contributions to articles and number of pages).

Since AJES is recognized as an interdisciplinary journal in social science, it would be helpful to look at the major fields of specialization of the contributors to the journal. Therefore, Table 4 presents the proportional rankings of the disciplines associated with contributing authors.