Hugo Mialon writes:
Is economics an art? I address this old, but important, question empirically by examining the impact of rhetorical features of the titles of published economics articles on the ultimate success of these articles, as measured by their cumulative citations over the six-year period following their publication. Twenty-eight percent of articles in the sample have a fresh figure of speech in their title. Surprisingly, adding a rhetorical device to the title of an empirical article adds more than four citations to the article’s "lifetime" count, which represents about twenty percent of the lifetime citations of the average empirical article. This result testifies to the continuing power of rhetoric and poetry in economics science.
Here is the paper. To be sure, quality of author and article are elusive variables, especially since we cannot assess them by citation counts (here the dependent variable). Smart authors might write better papers and come up with better and more poetic titles; maybe the poetry is not what matters.
Nonetheless this paper has many fun facts. Poetry in the title doesn’t help theoretical papers. Coming from a top school boosts the cites for empirical work more than theory. Having a research assistant, or a math appendix, correlates negatively with the number of cites for a theory paper. It is easier for an empiricist at a non-top school to get into the top journals than for a theorist; the latter market shows greater presence of "superstars" in the Sherwin Rosen sense.
Mialon’s effort is interesting, but incomplete in terms of the implied policy advice to economists (to wit: pay more attention to the poetics, at least if you do empirical work).
Any look at the rhetoric of economists naturally brings to mind the work of McCloskey on the topic, and McCloskey has often urged economists to write better. Jack High, in a 1987 paper in Economic Inquiry, asked the right question of McCloskey: at the margin, are the benefits of better writing worth the costs? High concluded that the expected private costs of improving one’s writing exceed the expected benefits, for most scholars.
Maybe a poetic title is low-hanging fruit for economists chasing citation counts. But if Mialon believed his own empirical work on the topic, why did he choose a purely informative title for his paper, “Poetry in Economics”? Why not employ a poetic figure in his title?
I suggest: “Low-Hanging Fruit for Economists Chasing Citation Counts?” Two metaphors and a rhetorical question wrapped up into a single title. That should score him an extra 10 – 12 citations right there.
The notion that editors at the top journals in economics are acting
selflessly in the interest of their journal (to maximize the citation
count to their journal) is debated in the most recent Econjournalwatch.
Mialon’s paper is extraordinary in the sense that it conducts an
empirical analysis that controls for many, many factors that might
influence citation count. I found this attention to detail extremely
impressive. The fact that the theory papers were not positively impacted
by poetic titles probably says something about comparative advantage;
How many mathematicians does it take to write a good poem? That is,
Mialon makes not distinction between a poetic title that is good versus
one that is schlock. Since empiricists are more interested on average
in the real world, it makes sense that on average they would be better at
writing poetic titles.
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