In the current issue of The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review (A journal of national and international economic developments, particularly focusing on their monetary aspects), Engemann and Wall [PDF] rank journals for the "ambitious economist":
In contrast to other rankings, the ambition rankings focus on citations in the seven leading journals (AER, Econometrica, Economic Journal, JPE, QJE, REStat and REStud) instead of all economics journals. The number of citations are divided by the number of articles to obtain a ranking measure. The top 5 journals in 2008 are about what you'd expect:
- QJE
- JPE
- Econometrica
- AER
- REStud
The authors also consider trends by comparing citations from 1995 to 2001 and 2001 to 2007. To the right is the list of the biggest losers. From 2002 to 2008, JEEM's ranking fell by 24 spots to 57. I have several hypotheses about why JEEM's ranking has fallen:
- Everyone in the economics profession got bored with the contingent valuation debate around about 2001.
- General economists got bored with environmental policy analyses with the succesful implementation of cap-and-trade in the EPA's Acid Rain Program. Why worry about something that is a proven winner?
- Environmental economists don't really develop much theory or econometric technique. We apply stuff developed in other fields. We don't develop the techniques but we have the best (demand) data to test them.
- My JEEM papers all appeared during the 1995-2001 era. All of my (dwindling) JEEM submissions from 2001 to 2007 were met with a sound and thorough rejection. Coincidence?
Whatever the reason, the fall in the rankings is not really good news for JEEM or environmental (that cute little niche field) economists.