Ranking of nations and heightened competition in Matthew core journals: two faces of the Matthew effect for countries

Library Trends, Wntr, 2002 by Manfred Bonitz

ABSTRACT

THE MATTHEW EFFECT FOR COUNTRIES (MEC) consists of the systematic deviation in the number of actual (observed) citations from the number of expected citations: A few countries, expecting a high impact (i.e., a high number of cites per paper) receive a surplus of citations, while the majority of countries, expecting a lower impact, lose citations.

The MEC is characterized by numerous facets, but two are the most impressive. The first is the possibility of ranking the science nations by their overall efficiency of scientific performance, thus making the MEC attractive for science policy. The second is the concentration of the MEC in a small number of scientific journals which happen to be the most competitive markets for scientific papers and, therefore, are of interest to librarians as well as scientists.

First, by using an appropriate measure for the above-mentioned deviation of the observed from the expected citation rate one can bring the countries under investigation into a rank order, which is almost stable over time and independent of the main scientific fields and the size (i.e., publication output) of the participating countries. Metaphorically speaking, this country rank distribution shows the extent to which a country is using its scientific talents. This is the first facet of the MEC.

The second facet appears when one studies the mechanism (i.e., microstructure) of the MEC. Every journal contributes to the MEC. The "atoms" of the MEC are redistributed citations, whose number turns out to be a new and sensitive indicator for any scientific journal. Bringing the journals into a rank order according to this indicator, one finds that only 144 journals out of 2,712 contain half of all redistributed citations, and thus account for half of the MEC. We give a list of these "Matthew core journals" (MCJ) together with a new typology relating the new indicator to the well-known ones, such as publication or citation numbers. It is our hypothesis that the MCJ are forums of the fiercest competition in science--the "Olympic games in science" proceed in this highest class of scientific journals.

INTRODUCTION

The Discovery of the Matthew Effect for Countries

It is often regretted that research papers, especially in the natural sciences, follow the stereotyped approach "introduction-method-results-conclusions," while the circumstances under which the authors achieved their results remain hidden. In contrast, this paper starts with a historical survey of the research lines we have followed since 1990. Impatient readers may skip this introductory section.

The effect was detected in 1994. A eureka moment of the kind known from discoveries in the natural sciences encouraged us to call what we could see on the computer screen "Matthew effect"--later, more precisely, "Matthew effect for countries" (MEC) (Bonitz, Bruckner, & Scharnhorst, 1995a). This event was no accident, it was preceded by long years of investigations into the structure of national science systems (Bonitz, Bruckner, & Scharnhorst, 1991, 1992, 1993). For instance, a hypothesis of the existence of two worlds in science--a "Right World" and a "Left World"--was a forerunner of the MEC (Bonitz, Bruckner, & Scharnhorst, 1995a, 1995b, 1996a, 1996b). Furthermore, if we hadn't had in the backs of our minds that there was a "Matthew effect in science," as introduced by the eminent scholar R. K. Merton into the sociology of science (Merton, 1968), we never would have dared name our phenomenon "Matthew effect."

In the first phase of our investigations, we studied the effect's time-stability, field-dependency, and its order of magnitude. The effect turned out to be stable over time, independent of scientific fields, and to have a small order of magnitude (Bonitz, Bruckner, & Scharnhorst, 1997). It is not an artifact. At this time, any speculations concerning the practical impact of our findings were beyond the scope of our considerations. Then, a measure for the effect was developed--"Matthew-Index"--the value of which must be computed for each country (Bonitz, Bruckner, & Scharnhorst, 1999a). Countries can be ranked according to this measure, and one can easily see how a certain country is affected by the MEC. We found our country ranking method more expressive than a relational charts representation developed by other researchers (Braun, Glanzel, & Schubert, 1989).

At the beginning, we were taking for granted the public understanding of the Gospel parable described in St. Matthew 25:14-30, and of Merton's Matthew effect in science. We declared, that the Right World (citation rich) countries were "taking away" citations from the Left World (citation poor) countries (Bonitz, Bruckner, & Scharnhorst, 1995a). It was some time before we grasped the very essence of the famous Biblical parable and then found it surprisingly compatible with our findings (Bonitz, 1997). This fact helped us in treating the "meaning" of the country rank distribution. It enabled us to understand whether it reflects a "discrimination against certain countries," the "quality of national science systems," the "usage of scientific talents," or the "efficiency of competition in science."