Unchanged and yet different? Publication behavior in economics in the context of open access and rankings | ediss.sub.hamburg

A doctoral dissertation. Abstract: The contexts of scientific publishing are subject to constant change. Over the past 20 years, the open access movement, which originated with the declaration of the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002 and most recently culminated in the UNESCO Recommendation on Open Science in autumn 2023, has initiated a transformation of the scientific publishing system. The demand for free access to scientific research results found expression in Germany in the Berlin Declaration of 2003. The aim of the movement is to make scientific research from all disciplines accessible to everyone for the benefit of researchers and society as a whole.

This claim clashes with research evaluation practices that rely on the measurement of citations, journal impact factors, and rankings. The scientific achievements of researchers are assessed on this basis, although the underlying metrics allow for statements about the number of citations to individual publications. An appropriate interpretation or even abolition of these quantitative indicators, e.g., for appointment procedures, was repeatedly called for in the 2012 Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) and in 2022 by CoARA – Coalition for Advancing Research Assessment and many others. In the academic discipline of economics, there is a strong focus on a reputation hierarchy that grants researchers reputation based on publications in high-ranking international journals. These publications are crucial for an academic career, as research achievements are assessed based on journal impact factors and rankings within the framework of job recruitment and appointment procedures. In economics in Germany, the regular publication of the Handelsblatt rankings since 2005 has added a decisive factor that determines the evaluation of research achievements. This creates incentives for researchers in economics to align their publication behavior with rankings. Against this background, the question arises as to whether the publication behavior of researchers in economics has changed in the context of open access and rankings. To answer this question, the study focuses on central publication formats in economics, such as journal articles and working papers. It is important to note that, on the one hand, articles in high-ranking academic journals in economics play a key role in acquiring reputation, and, on the other hand, the existing working paper culture is used to circulate and discuss scientific findings at an early stage. The interplay of different functions of academic publications is analyzed in this regard. Various manifestations of researchers' publication behavior are also examined with regard to career stage, institutional background, and orientation towards different paradigms within economics. Identified general trends in the academic publication system, such as the growth in the number of publications, internationalization, an increase in co-authorship, the rise of open access, and the relevance of research data, are analyzed to determine whether they can also be demonstrated for economics. The empirical study builds on this, combining quantitative analysis with a qualitative approach in a mixed-methods approach. On the one hand, publication lists of economists in Germany are analyzed, and on the other, expert interviews with researchers in economics on their publication behavior are conducted and evaluated. The results confirm that existing reputation hierarchies in German-speaking economics are firmly anchored in the academic publication system. The relevance of high-ranking international journals as central publication venues for reputation acquisition and the associated opportunities for academic advancement are reflected in a distinctly strategic publication behavior. Strong incentives emanating from impact factors and rankings for evaluating research performance help explain why economics researchers base their journal selection on their impact factors rather than on whether the journals are published openly. Furthermore, the working paper culture established in economics explains why the potential of open access journals, such as the free availability of research results and the often associated higher citation rates, is neither recognized nor fully exploited. Working papers enable free access to research results in economics and thus also allow researchers to prioritize findings early on. With regard to their academic careers, it is particularly important for young researchers to publish in high-ranking international journals in order to send signals to the academic job market with a job-market paper. The institutional background also influences the level of publication pressure on researchers. In particular, researchers at non-university research institutions and universities are required to align their publication practices with high-ranking, refereed journals in view of evaluations and the allocation of research funding. A look at the economics focus shows that there are hurdles for researchers outside the mainstream to publish in high-ran