Contribution, attribution and the assignment of intellectual property rights in economics

Purpose – Within the area of economics, the value attached to highly-ranked journal publications, such as the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy and Quarterly Journal of Economics, in tenure, promotion, and merit pay processes is often several times greater than that of second-tier publications, such as Economic Inquiry and the Southern Economic Journal. As a result, one would expect that author(s) will put forth relatively more production “effort” in order to gain acceptance in a top-tier journal. The additional production effort may come in the form of making the manuscript available to a larger number of outside readers, perhaps via seminars and conferences. This study aims to examine whether the economics research production process differs between top- and second-tier journal outlets. Design/methodology/approach – Data are collected from feature articles published in two top-tier and two second-tier economics journals for the period 1995-1999, inclusive. Means difference tests on various “production statistics” across journals are conducted/presented. Findings – Tests presented in this study indicate that the fraction of the “scientific team” whose contributions are recognized in the acknowledgment footnote of research articles appearing in top-tier economics journal outlets is, on average, greater than that of articles appearing in second-tier economics journal outlets. Originality/value – By examining within-discipline aspects of intellectual property rights assignment in economics, our study extends the work of Laband (2002), which examined interdisciplinary differences (i.e. agricultural economics versus economics) in the assignment of intellectual property rights.