An analysis of contributions and contributors to Public Choice and the Journal of Law and Economics; 1973–1987

Summary and concluding comments

Several conclusions may be drawn from the information we have presented here. First and without doubt, the University of Chicago is by far the most dominant force overall, and is particularly so with respect to the production of pages and papers published in the Journal of Law and Economics. The George Mason-Virginia Tech influence is strong with respect to Public Choice, but is not, in our opinion, dominant.

One does not necessarily need to be located at a large, research-oriented school in order to publish in either journal, but these schools are the source of most contributions. This is particularly true of the JLE but significantly less so for PC. The source of contributions is very broad, but top 50 institutions account for the lion's share. Contributions by persons employed at foreign institutions are important, particularly for PC.

The analysis of papers and pages by degree schools of authors reveals that, while economists dominate, other disciplines are important, especially political science with respect to PC; law and business-related disciplines for JLE. These data also show that, while Chicago faculty contribute only marginally to PC, Chicago graduates exert a very strong influence. The influence of Chicago on the JLE is really notable when we rank institutions by the total contributions of both faculty and graduates, and when we rank the top 25 contributors to each journal.

We hope that this paper will provide information useful to those interested, for whatever reason, in institutional and individual publishing performance with respect to the two journals. For us, the process has been difficult and time consuming, but also greatly interesting and rewarding.