A recent article, “New Approaches to Ranking Economics Journals” by Yolanda K. Kodrzycki and Pingkang Yu, ranks economics journals in terms of their impact on other economics journals and their impact on other journals. They included 181 journals in their set of economics journals studied. As a ranker from way back [see my 1984 JEL piece with Stan Liebowitz], I can say the paper looks like a good one. However, I do have a major nit to pick:
So far as I could tell, not one of the journals studied is devoted to the economics of sports! That is a very serious omission, given the growth of this exciting sub-discipline. To paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, “We don’t get no respect!”
Equally disappointing is that in the recent edition of Job Opportunities for Economists, there appear to be no listings of vacancies for people to teach sports economics. I know, I know. People who teach sports economics are also/usually/primarily hired to teach industrial organization, labour, or something else; in fact we are usually hired to teach some other course and then we propose sports economics as a new course. But you would think that with growing enrolments in sports economics courses, someone would include the course as a possibility. [And in case you wondered, yes there is a JEL classification, L83 under “Industry Studies”, Sports; Gambling; Recreation; Tourism.]
