Annals of Library Science and Documentation 41)1; 1994; 33-39

CITATION ANALYSIS OF SOME SELECTED INDIAN JOURNALS IN ECONOMICS

Citation analysis of 2599 journal citations from1986-1990 of three Indian journals in economicswas carried out. Indian econometricians giveequal importance to journal and non-journal mate-rials for their research work and depend uponnon-current research materials. The median ageof citations range is from 12to 15 years. Rankinglist indicates that Indian scholars in economicsuse more foreign literature and most of the jour-nals subscribed by the university library does notfind place in the ranked list.

INTRODUCTION

Citation analysis as a technique of bibliometricsstudy of literature is based on the principle thatthere is some degree of relationship between theciting and cited articles. Martyn defines it as"analysis of the citations or references whichform part of the scholarly apparatus of primarycommunication" [1]. The frequency of the citeddocuments appearing in a number of citingarticles is, in some measure, an indication of itsinfluence or impact on the subject. Ranking ofperiodicals based on such frequencies has itsmanifold usage both for the scientists ofthe fieldand the librarians.

The technique of citation is largely statistical andis used for arranging those cited materials in somekind of rank tdstudy their relative importance.Broadus defines the "true citation analysis asone which deals with works cited as having actu-ally been used in preparation of, or having other-wise contributed to, the source paper" [2].Dhalig used citations to trace the diffusion of anidea and pointed out that some papers becamesociometric stars while others are isolated [3].

Vol41 No 1 March 1994

MAYA VERMAAssistant ProfessionalPt. Sunder Lal Sharma LibraryPt. Ravishankar Shukla UniversityRaipur -492010

Gross and Gross [6] for the first time in 1927applied a method of simple statistical method tothe grading of scientific serials according to theirrelative importance based on citation countingfrom source journals. Similar surveys were madeby other workers of the periodicals for mathe-matics, electrical engineering, geology, medi-cine, biochemistry, physiology. Comprehensivelists for various areas of scientific knowledge wereprepared in 1944 under the direction of a Commit-tee of the Association of Research Libraries andby Brown [7] in 1956. Sengupta [8,9] preparedtwo comprehensive lists for medicine and biomedi-cal sciences from the Indian scientists point ofview. The present evaluation is based more orless on the technique used by Gross and Gross[6)].

METHODOLOGY

The present study was conducted with three jour-nals, i.e. Indian Economic Journal, Indian Eco-nomic Review and Indian Journal of Economicsusing descriptive statistical method for citationanalysis. Arithmetic mean age, median age, rangeand Pearsonian coefficient of skewness ofcitations were calculated. 2599 journal citationsto 366 articles published in 47 issues of theseselected journals from 1986 to 1990 as shown inTable 1 were analysed.

Each citation from the different issues of thejournals was copied on to cards and waschecked for completeness of bibliographicelements and correctness of entries. For everyjournal title, the number of citations from that titleover the five year period, 1986 to 1990, wascounted. The journals are then ranked by de-creasing frequency of citations [4].

33

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ITable 1

Distribution of citations by form in selected journals in economics.

S.No. Name of Journal Citation from

Journal Book Combined Corporate Disser- Paper Manu- Totalbook book tation script

1. Indian Economic Journal 1275 744 146 186 18 74 4 2447

2. Indian Economic Review 455 283 78 75 21 48 1 961

3. Indian Journal of Economics 869 846 134 204 17 61 1 2132

Total 2599 1873 358 465 56 183 6 5540

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CITATION ANALYSIS OF SOME SELECTED INDIAN JOURNALS IN ECONOMICS

FINDINGS & DISCUSSIONS

Distribution of All Citations by Form

The distribution of all citations by form is pre-sented in Table 2.

Journal citations are 46.91 percent of all citations

and non-journal materials are 53.08 percent. Thestudy indicates that cited resources by Indianeconometricians are journals and non-journalsand both are equally important for econemetricresearches in India. Sengupta [4J and Chiev-navin [5J observed 87.56 percent and 81.5percent journal citations respectively in biomedi-cal journals.

Table 2

Combined distribution of citations by form

Forms of Citations Number Percent

Journals (fotal) 2599 46.91

Non-journals 2941 53.08

Books 1873 33.80

Combined books 358 6.46

Corporate books 465 8.39

Papers 183 3.30

Theses & Dissertations 56 1.01

Manuscripts 6 0.10

Total 5540 100

Age Distribution of Journal Citations

To the librarians, the age distribution of citationsgives an overview of how materials based on ageare being used. It also provides a basis forimproving or introducing the services. The de-scriptive statistics to characterize the age distri-bution of journal citations by year of publicationsare shown in Table 3. For all citations the median

Vo141 No 1 March 1994

age is 14 years (Indian Economic Journal) and 13years for both (Indian Economic Review and In-dian Journal of Economics). This indicates thatthe majorities of citations made by Indian econ-ometricians are non-current. This may be due tothe factthat since India isa developing country, itseconomic backbone is western based. Indianeconometricians have to depend on foreignjournals for their researches.

35

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I•Table 3

Age statistics of three selected Indian journals in economics

Age Statistics

Name of Journal Median age in years Skewness

1986 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1986 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990to to1990 1990

Indian Economic Journal 14 12 18 13 13 14 0.8 0.9 0.9 0.8 0.4 0.6

Indian Economic Review 13 15 15 14 12 12 0.5 1.3 0.3 0.1 0.4 0.8

Indian Journal of Economics 13 15 12 13 11 15 0.6 0.5 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.1

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CITATION ANALYSIS OF SOME SELECTED INDIAN JOURNALS IN ECONOMICS

The median ages by year of publication are 12, 18,13, 13 and 14 years for 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989and 1990 respectively in the case of IndianEconomic Journal. This shows both increasingand decreasing pattern of age in years. IndianEconomic Review shows a pattern of decreasingage in years having 15, 15, 14, 12, 12 years for1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990 respectively,indicating the tendency towards current citationin the last years of publications. Indian JournalEconomics again shows fluctuating pattern ofage in years with 15, 12, 13, 11 and 15 years ofage for 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989 and 1990 respec-tively. The overall picture is that in Indian journals,citations are non-current. This is an indication ofpoor research activity in economics. This may bedue to the fact that foreign journals reach Indianworkers very late. Time required in data collectionand manual processing of data might be causesfor poor to moderate research activities in eco-nomics.

The age range varies from 0-38 in 1989 to 0-96 in1987 in Indian Economic Journal. Four citationsaged zero (Indian Economic Review, 1990) and3 citations aged 96 (Indian Economic Journal,1987) were observed. It is difficult to assign anyreason tor the old citations. There number beingfew, it may be noted that researchers ineconomics have tendency of using currentcitations.

The Pearsonian Coefficient of Skewne~s is posi-tive in all cases. It varies from 0.1 to 1.3 anddifferent from zero indicating, skewnes of theage distribution of citations toward right. The agedistribution tails off to some ages far beyond themedian age with small number of frequencies.

Ranking

The ranked list has been prepared from threejournals of economics published in India usingthe technique used by Gross and Gross [6J andpresented in Table 4.

Pt. Sundar Lal Sharma Library of Pt. Ravish-ankar Shukla University, Raipur (M.P.), India,subscribes to 23 and 14 journals on economicspublished from India and foreign countriesrespectively. Out of 23 Indian journals sub-scribed by the University, only five find place inthe present ranked list, with ranking number 5,12, 14, 16 and 36. The foreign journals sub-scribed by the university have ranking grade 1, 3,6,9, 19,22, 27, 28 and 38 from the Indian pointof view. Amongst the foreign journals sub-scribed by the university nine journals securetheir position in the ranked list in the field ofeconomics. This indicates that Indian research-ers in economics use more foreign literature fortheir work.

Table 4

Ranklist of periodicals in the field of economics cited in Indian journals

Rank Abbreviated* Country Year Number Percentage oftitle of of of of total citationsjournals publication first pub. citations

2 3 4 5 6

1. Amer. Econ. Rev. US 1911 253 9.732. J. Polit. Econ. US 1892 142 5.463. Econ. J. UK 1891 125 4.814. Rev. Econ. Statist. NE 1976 120 4.625. Econ. Polit. Weekly II 1966 103 3.966. Econometrica UK 1933 89 3.427. Quart. J. Econ. US 1962 72 2.778. J. Int. Econ. NE 1971 58 2.239. Economica UK 1921 55 2.12

contd.

Vol 41 No 1 March 1994 37

MAYA VERMA

1 2 3 4 5 6

10. Rev. Econ. Stud. UK 1933 55 2.1211. World Develop. US 1973 42 1.6212. Indian Econ. Rev. II 1966 41 1.5812. Southern Econ. J. US 1933 41 1.5814. Indian Econ. J. II 1953/54 40 1.5414. J. Develop. Econ. NE 1974 40 1.5416. Can. J. Econ. CN 1968 36 1.3916. Indian J. Agr. Econ. II 1940 36 1.3916. J. Finance US 1946 36 1.3919. J. Econ. Lit. US 1963 34 1.3119. J. Money. Credit. US 1969 34 1.31

Banking19. J. Monetary Econ. NE 1975 34 1.3122. Amer. J. Agr. Econ. US 1919 31 1.1922. Souther. Econ. J. US 1933 31 1.1924. J. Develop. Stud. UK 1964 30 1.1525. Int. Econ. Rev. US 1960 28 1.0826. Indian J. Econ. II 1916 26 1.0027. Oxford Econ. Pap. UK 1938 24 0.9228. Econ. Develop.

Cult. Change US 1952 23 0.8829. We!. Wirtsch. Arch. GW 1914 20 0.7730. Fed. Reserv. Bank St. US 1917 19 0.73

Louis. Econ. Rev.30. J. Amer. Statist. Ass. US 1948 19 0.7332. J. Econometrics SZ 1973 17 0.6532. J. Econ. Theor. US 1969 17 0.6532. J. Ind. Econ. UK 1952 17 0.6532. Manchaster Sch. Econ. UK 1930 17 0.65

Soc. Stud.36. Arthvijnan II 1959 16 0.6236. Econ.lnq. US 1962 16 0.6238. Brooking Pap. US 1970 15 0.58

Econ. Activ.38. Public. Finance GW 1946 15 0.5838. Scand. J. Econ. UK 1899 15 0.5841. Developing Econ. JA 1962 14 0.5442. Bell J. Econ. US 1970 13 0.5042. J. Roy Statist. Soc. 13 0.5042. Pop. Develop. Rev. US 1975 13 0.5045. Econ. Rec. AT 1925 12 0.4645. Econ. Times II 1961 12 0.4645. Finance Develop. UN 1964 12 0.4645. J. Farm. Econ. US 1914 12 0.4645. Kynlos SZ 1948 12 0.4645. Sankhya II 1933 12 0.4651. J. Macro Econ. 11 0.4252. J. Law. Econ. US 1958 10 0.3852. J. Public. Econ. SZ 1972 10 0.3852. Pakistan Develop. Rev. PK 1961 10 0.38

contd.

38 Ann Lib Sci Doc

CITATION ANALYSIS OF SOME SELECTED INDIAN JOURNALS IN ECONOMICS

Total 54 2 Journals each with 9 citations 2x9 18 0.692 Journals each with 8 citations 2x8 16 0.622 Journals each with 7 citations 2x7 14 0.5410 Journals each with 6 citations 10 x 6 60 2.3110 Journals each with 5 citations 10 x 5 50 1.9215 Journals each with 4 citations 15 x 4 60 2.3126 Journals each with 3 citations 26x3 78 3.0052 Journals each with 2 citations 52x 2 104 4.00151 Journals each with 1 citation 151 x 1 151 5.81

324 2599 100

* The abbreviations used in this table and in the text are taken from Periodical Title Abbreviations, Council of National LibraryAssociations approved by American Standard Association.

Although the method of citation counting wasdeveloped with a view to get a factual approachto the relative value of scientific periodicals in thediscipline concerned, the method is not free fromlimitations and lists of journals thus preparedcannot be taken as the final commitments forpurchase; expert's opinion may have to besought. Further, this process of evaluationshould be a continuous one as the position ofindividual journal in the ranked table are bound tochange with the change of time due to variousreasons.

REFERENCES1. ARTYN (J). Progress in documentation:

citation analysis. J. Doc. 31,2; 1975; 290.

2. BROADUS (R N). The applications ofcitations analysis to library collectionbuilding. In Advances in Librarianship.1977. Academic Press; New York.

3. DHALIG (R L). Shannon's informationtheory; the spread of an idea. In Studiesof innovation and of communication tothe public. 1962. Stanford University,Institute for Communication Research;Palo Alto.

4. SENGUPTA (I N). Bibliometric research:

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growth of biomedical literature.1988.SBA Publications; Calcutta. Vol. I, p.73,78,94.

5. CHIEVNAVIN (P V). Use of journal litera-ture by biomedical researchers in thePhilippines - a case study using citationanalysis. Lib. Sc. 21; 1984.

6. GROSS (P L K) and GROSS (E M).College libraries and chemical educa-tion. Science. 66; 1927; 385-389.

7. BROWN (C H). Scientific serials; charac-teristics and list of most cited publica-tions in mathematics, physics, chemis-try, geology, physiology, botany, zool-ogy and entomology. 1956. ACRL; Chi-cago (U.S.A). (ACRL Monograph 16), p.50-56, 71-154.

8. SENGUPTA (I N). Ranking of periodicalsin the field of medical sciences from theIndian scientist's point of view - analysisof data for 1954-58. IASLIC Bull. 15; 1970;120-144.

9. SENGUPTA (I N). Ranking of periodi-cals in the field of biomedical sciencesfrom the Indian scientist's point of view -analysis of data for 1959-1968. UNESCOBul/. Lib. 24; 1970; 143-152.

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