Implications of Cross-disciplinarity: Estimating the “Paper Drain” in Development Studies

Why does the cross-disciplinary field of “development studies” have relatively low “journal impact indicators” in comparison with other mono-disciplinary fields of study? We argue that a reasonable explanation is the existence of a “paper drain” phenomenon: a certain proportion of the papers dealing...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of development research 2022-06, Vol.34 (3), p.1542-1572
Main Authors: Tezanos, Sergio, Trueba, Carmen
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic disciplines
Bibliometrics
Cooperation
Development and Social Change
Development Economics
Development Policy
Development Studies
Discipline
Interdisciplinary aspects
Knowledge
Original Article
Publishing
Social Sciences
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Summary:Why does the cross-disciplinary field of “development studies” have relatively low “journal impact indicators” in comparison with other mono-disciplinary fields of study? We argue that a reasonable explanation is the existence of a “paper drain” phenomenon: a certain proportion of the papers dealing with development is eventually published in journals that are assigned to other (non-development) fields. We conceptualize the paper drain phenomenon and empirically estimate its size for the field of development studies. Running an algorithmic procedure on the Scopus database, we identify six “key development issues” and estimate that the subject category of “development” is approximately publishing 28% of the papers dealings with these issues within the Social Sciences. The remaining 72% are “draining” to other (non-development) categories. We offer some recommendations in order to rise the scientific impact (and influence) of development studies, such as increasing the number of journals covered by the impact indicators.
ISSN:0957-8811
1743-9728
DOI:10.1057/s41287-021-00433-w