
doi: 10.1007/bf02284679
In their recent paper, "The Publishing Performance of U.S. Economics Departments in Industrial Organization," Victor J. Tremblay, Carol Horton Tremblay and Byunglak Lee (1989) seek to assess "faculty strength in industrial economics" by analyzing a set of information about "publishing performance." To do this, they tabulate the page totals for authors in "the leading 45 journals" for the years 1980-86. The results are interesting, but they present certain problems which invite further discussion. Several technical conditions make Tremblay-Tremblay-Lee's (TTL) research and results less complete and reliable than they suggest. In particular, measures of the frequency of citations are likely to give a more reliable picture, than do TTL's page counts, of which departments are "active." Also, there is a larger-and much more important issue which Tremblay-Tremblay-Lee inadvertently pose: the extent to which "Industrial Organization" is the same as "New IO Theory." The TTL methods and results are a useful basis for exploring this question, which goes to the heart of current controversies about the field's true nature and value. I will suggest in this note that there are actually two largely separate fields: "new 10 theory" is complementary to mainstream Industrial Organization, rather than a substitute for it. Because Tremblay-Tremblay-Lee make no distinction between the two fields, their results are incomplete and, in some prominent details, less than reliable.
| selected citations These citations are derived from selected sources. This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | 0 | |
| popularity This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network. | Average | |
| influence This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically). | Average | |
| impulse This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network. | Average |
