New research by the Director of the Turner College's Center for Economic Education, Frank Mixon, and Kamal Upadhyaya of the University of New Haven examines the research impact of economics departments and economists who are affiliated with America's Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). To measure research impact, total Google Scholar citations to the work of each HBCU-affiliated economist are compiled employing the Google Scholar Profile feature in the Publish or Perish open source software package. Using this process Mixon and Upadhyaya are able to identify citations to economics faculty at 40 HBCUs. These data allowed Mixon and Upadhyaya to present a number of findings, all of which are described in a study set to published in a future issue of the Review of Black Political Economy.
For example, they rank the top 20 economics departments at HBCUs using both mean and total Google Scholar citations to all faculty in each department. The economics department at Bethune-Cookman University ranks first, with a mean citations count of 1,242. This figure is 19.7 percent greater than the mean citation count for South Carolina State University, which ranks second. Rounding out the top five HBCU economics departments, for which the citations threshold is an average of 732 citations, are Tennessee State University, Morgan State University and Howard University.
Mixon and Upadhyaya next present a ranking of economics departments at HBCUs on the basis of total citations to the departments’ faculties. As indicated there, the top five economics departments are those affiliated with Howard University, North Carolina A&T State University, Tennessee State University, Morgan State University and Bethune-Cookman University. Total citations across the economics departments in this group range from the 2,484 citations garnered by the economists at Bethune-Cookman University to the 10,993 citations earned by Howard University’s economics faculty.
Deeper exploration of the data reveals that mean citations associated with economics departments at private HBCUs exceed those at their public counterparts by about 159 percent, a result that Mixon and Upadhyaya attribute to the greater availability of endowment funds at private HBCUs. In this regard the study reports that of the eight largest HBCU endowments in 2021, six belonged to private HBCUs, and that the top three endowments ranged from a low of $380 million to a high of almost $800 million, each of which was associated with a private HBCU. Another key finding is that the presence of a named professorship lifts an HBCU’s departmental research impact by about 165 percent.
The final section of the study is devoted to a presentation and discussion of a ranking of the top 40 economists at HBCUs. Topping this ranking is Elizabeth Asiedu of Howard University with 8,825 citations to date. Lastly, among the top 40 HBCU economists, six are affiliated with North Carolina A&T State University, five are affiliated with Howard University, four each are affiliated with Jackson State University and Tennessee State University and two each are affiliated with Clark Atlanta University, Fayetteville State University, Florida A&M University, Morgan State University, Morehouse College and Tuskegee University. The remaining eight individuals are affiliated with Alabama A&M University, Central State University, University of Maryland – Eastern Shore, North Carolina Central University, South Carolina State University, Southern University and A&M College, Spelman College and West Virginia State University.
Comments
Post a Comment