Statistical analysis of the Hirsch index

DOI10.1111/J.1467-9469.2011.00782.XzbMATH Open1253.62103arXiv1102.2701OpenAlexW3124925730WikidataQ114255597 ScholiaQ114255597MaRDI QIDQ3145562FDOQ3145562

Authors: Luca Pratelli, Alberto Baccini, Lucio Barabesi, Marzia Marcheselli 

Publication date: 21 December 2012

Published in: Scandinavian Journal of Statistics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: The Hirsch index (commonly referred to as h-index) is a bibliometric indicator which is widely recognized as effective for measuring the scientific production of a scholar since it summarizes size and impact of the research output. In a formal setting, the h-index is actually an empirical functional of the distribution of the citation counts received by the scholar. Under this approach, the asymptotic theory for the empirical h-index has been recently exploited when the citation counts follow a continuous distribution and, in particular, variance estimation has been considered for the Pareto-type and the Weibull-type distribution families. However, in bibliometric applications, citation counts display a distribution supported by the integers. Thus, we provide general properties for the empirical h-index under the small- and large-sample settings. In addition, we also introduce consistent nonparametric variance estimation, which allows for the implemention of large-sample set estimation for the theoretical h-index.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1102.2701

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zbMATH Keywords

variance estimationheavy-tailed distributionHirsch index

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Nonparametric estimation (62G05) Applications of statistics (62P99)

Cites Work

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Cited In (12)

• Herfindahl-Hirschman index level of concentration values modification and analysis of their change
• Item-time-dependent Lotkaian informetrics and applications to the calculation of the time-dependent \(h\)-index and \(g\)-index
• Temporal dynamics of Hirsch index
• The tempered discrete Linnik distribution
• Analysis of the Hirsch index's operational properties
• What the h-index really means
• An axiomatic characterization of the Hirsch-index
• A multi-criteria approach to the \(h\)-index
• Sugeno integral-based confidence intervals for the theoretical \(h\)-index
• Asymptotics for the Hirsch index
• Three dimensions of scientific impact
• A Bayesian h‐index: How to measure research impact

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