number of citations to the top field journals relative to the top general journals (Ellison, 2002). Yet there is no basis for believing that the relative quality of the top field journals declined; indeed, in the case of development economics, Bardhan (2003) argues that research quality has been rising relative to other fields. Such a bias against field journals would compound the above effects of constraints on diversification, given diminishing returns.

These observations speak to the need for an effort in this paper to include comparisons within development field journals, while not neglecting the need to take a broader sweep of the full range of journals, including mainstream economics journals. We will also make comparisons with some non-academic institutions that have similar objectives to the Bank, namely other multilateral development banks.

We begin by looking at the volume of Bank publications, after which we turn to the citations those publications have received. The Box summarizes our findings. Finally we try to draw out some implications for assessing the Bank’s research output relative to other institutions.

# **Box: Summary assessment of the World Bank’s publication record**

1. The vast majority of the 20,000 publications by Bank staff or consultants that we have found are not books but journal articles, book chapters and working papers. The Bank is a significant publisher in its own right, but nearly half (45%) of the Bank’s publications are published by others, notably in scholarly journals. Yet this sizeable output is not catalogued in the Bank’s online Documents and Reports database.

2. There has been substantial growth since 1990 in journal articles and working papers, but no growth in books and only limited growth of book chapters. The Bank has diversified its publications away from books.

3. In the SSCI fields “Economics” and “Planning and Development,” the Bank has published more articles than any of the 14 universities except Harvard. Its volume of journal articles in the top development economics journals is nearly 2.5 times the average among the 14 universities; only Harvard comes close. The Bank outranks the 14 universities in terms of the volume of all articles on poverty and on economics articles on development, growth, education, and health.

4. The Bank’s journal articles differ noticeably to academic articles in the same journals. Greater focus on development and developing countries is evident, as is the Bank’s emphasis on agriculture, poverty, inequality, health, education and rural issues.

5. The emphasis on development has only a small effect on the quality of the journals that Bank authors publish in. The Bank’s median article in terms of journal quality is in a journal with an impact factor equivalent to that of the _World Bank Economic Review_ . We find no support for the view that the Bank’s authors publish any larger share of their papers in lower quality journals than do academics at most of the top universities in economics. In this respect the Bank is on a par with Columbia and Stanford, and ahead of many others, including the London School of Economics, University College London and Oxford.

6. Around 70% of Bank books are published in a flagship series. The most-cited is the _Policy Research Report_ series. The second-most is _Latin America and Caribbean Studies;_ the third and fourth are <u>the</u> _Regional_ _<u>and Sectoral Studies</u>_ <u>and</u> _<u>World Bank Institute Development Studies</u>_ 5