National bias on the choice of journals: A study on agricultural economics from American and Indian point of view

Abstract

<span style="font-size:12.0pt;line-height: 115%;font-family:" times="" new="" roman";mso-fareast-font-family:"times="" roman";="" mso-ansi-language:en-us;mso-fareast-language:en-us;mso-bidi-language:ar-sa"="" lang="EN-US">Journal rankings produced from the citations of one or more host journals of whatever importance and popularity in the field, are prone to be biased towards the nationality of their authors. Based on the above assumption attempts have been made to determine the amount of such biasness by authors in the field of agricultural economics by considering the citations produced by two standard and well-established journals in the field. Results showed that the literature of agricultural economics was highly concentrated to a very few journals. One-fifth of the total citations produced by the host journals were self-cited and also revealed a great national bias in the choice of journals by authors. It is suggested that to make the journal ranking studies relevant to practical librarianship certain other methods are to be evolved, rather than one practiced at present.</span>