Savage Attack on HET "Down-Under"

The Australian Business Deans Council has just released its journal rankings and to the dismay of historians of economics it has downgraded HOPE from an A listed journal to a B.

The ABDC is a national council comprising Deans, Heads and Directors of Australian University business faculties and schools. Most, but not all, Departments of Economics are in business faculties in Australia.

In an earlier ranking exercise, the Australian Research Council ranked HOPE as A* - the highest ranking possible. When the ARC stopped ranking journals, the ABDC stepped in and re-ranked economics and business journals and downgraded HOPE to just A, and as of this week it has now been downgraded to a B. HOPE is now equally ranked with the History of Economics Review, which is silly. Other B ranked journals are the JHET and EJHET. The highest ranking any HET journal gets is a B. A number of other HET journals are ranked C (lowest ranking).

These rankings play a significant role in recruitment and promotion and access to funding.

In the latest ranking exercise, 3 well-know Australian historians of economics (all of whom had authored one or more books in the field) put in submissions to the ABDC advocating that HOPE be upgraded from an A to an A*. They were ignored. There was one submission, from a Professor Elizabeth Savage, who is a health economist, asking for HOPE to be downgraded from an A to a C. That submission was seriously considered, although the ABDC thought a downgrade to a C was too severe but accepted a "compromise" of a downgrade to a B.

Savage also recommended that the Journal of Economic Issues go from an A to B and that the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics go from an A to a B. Both suggestions were accepted.

Another interesting twist was that the ABDC said:

"Another consideration was the stature of a journal within its field. Generally, the panel viewed the #1 journal in a field as deserving of A* status, even if the journal would not achieve this status by citation data alone. For example, the Journal of Economic History is regarded as the top journal in the important field of Economic History, and has significantly more citations than any other journal in that field, but would not make the top 50 based on citations alone. (Of course, a line must be drawn, somewhere, concerning which fields are considered "important fields", and the panel used its judgment on that issue.)"

Apparently economic history is an important field but the history of economic thought is not.

Details are available at the Australian Business Dean’s website
http://www.abdc.edu.au/29.115.0.0.1.0.htm
 
A summary of the ranking reasons is given at: http://www.abdc.edu.au/download.php?id=1016520,1215,1 

According to the website:
“Until 30 September, interested parties can provide feedback,  on serious anomalies or errors in the revised list. Please note that this exposure period is not a forum for debating decisions. Disputing journal ratings on grounds already reviewed by the expert panels will not  be considered. 
During this public exposure period, a minimum of two international experts will simultaneously review each panel’s work to externally validate the final list.”
 
If members of the list feel so moved as to object to HOPE's ranking, it might be worth providing feedback on the website  link.

John 


John Lodewijks
Professor of Economics
University of Western Sydney
Parramatta Campus ED. G120
Locked Bag 1797, Penrith, NSW, 2751
Australia
61-2-9685 9404
0414-017-346
www.johnlodewijks.com