Economists are famous for believing there’s no free lunch. So why have we given our research away when other disciplines have held off? Here’s one story about why offering free snacks might pay off:
Profits from Giving Research Away
Note that the NBER working papers series is the #1 publication outlet in Google Scholar statistics for Business, Economics and Management with an h5 index(1) of 165, which puts the series 26th for all disciplines. A couple of the arXiv’s in physics and astronomy are even higher. The AER is second with an h5 index of 137, which puts it 48th on the overall list. Availability, good search engines, + the long long loooong lags in formal publication are really changing the game.
(1) From Google scholar: “The h5 index is the h-index for articles published in the last 5 complete years. It is the largest number h such that h articles published in 2011-2015 have at least h citations each.”
Cover image: US Consulate in Reykjavik, 2015. Arctic Yearbook Journal launch — an open access publication. With actual snacks.
Mereconomics 