Do papers of high interdisciplinarity have an advantage in terms of citations? A case study of the top five Economic journals

Abstract

This study examines the interdisciplinarity scores of papers published in five major Economic journals by analysing their references. It also explores the relationship between interdisciplinarity and citation. The study considers the influence of the citation time window on accumulating citations and investigates the source of citation advantage for high interdisciplinarity papers. Empirical findings reveal a U-shaped curve relationship between the interdisciplinarity of papers and their citation frequency. Papers with high interdisciplinarity do enjoy a citation advantage, which primarily stems from the attention and citations from distant disciplinary papers and multidisciplinary journals. However, it often takes a longer time for the value of interdisciplinary papers to be recognised. Based on these findings, the study discusses the necessity and effectiveness of incentives for interdisciplinary research and provides recommendations for evaluating and managing interdisciplinary research.