Mixon’s Research Featured in Times Higher Education

 

A new study by Turner College economist Frank Mixon and his coauthor João Faria of Florida Atlantic University appearing in Scientometrics is the focus of a July 2021 report by Jack Grove in Times Higher Education.  Grove’s report, titled “What is a Highly Cited Paper Worth? About £10,000 a Year,” indicates that Mixon’s study sug
gests that the impact of a highly cited paper on an academic’s pay may be higher than prior studies have indicated.  The study links publicly available information on pay in three of the largest state university systems in the U.S. to citations data, tracking how changes in one of a scholar’s citation indices resulting from a new publication affects his or her annual income.  According to the study, an economics professor in the state of Illinois could expect to see his or her income increase by 8.9 percent on average if a paper improved his or her citation index by one-half standard deviation.  In Florida, an economics professor’s pay was likely to rise by 4.6 percent following a highly cited paper, while in California the increase was about 2.8 percent.  While the results focused tightly on senior staff in economics – where mean incomes for professors are $140,000 to $152,000 – Mixon told Times Higher Education that they were “indicative of academia in general,” and “particularly so for those disciplines whose faculty engage in traditional forms of research, such as peer-reviewed journal publication.”  Times Higher Education was originally affiliated with the British daily newspaper (based in London) The Times, but relaunched in 2008 as a magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education.