Paper Tiger? Chinese Science and Home Bias in Citations

This (polemic) study investigates the phenomenon of home bias in scientific citations, mainly focusing on Chinese science. The analysis aims to measure the extent of this bias and its implications for the perceived global ranking of Chinese scientific output.

This study takes?a fresh perspective on?the?issue of home bias in scientific citations, a phenomenon that has been extensively studied in contexts such as international trade and finance. Notably, researchers have been found?to cite work from their own country disproportionately. While studies by Santamaría et al. (2023) and Teplitskiy et al. (2022) have shed light on this bias, this research offers a unique approach by examining its impact on cross-national comparisons of scientific output, particularly for a rapidly growing producer of scientific research like China.

This study undertakes a rigorous analysis, drawing data from top international scientific journals published between 2000 and 2021. The data covers 20 broad fields in the physical sciences, engineering, and biomedical research and includes an extensive 3.75 million articles and 202,142,130 unique citations. A robust model that accounts for country size and publication volume is used to examine citation patterns, ensuring deviations do not merely reflect larger countries receiving more citations.

The findings of this study are of monumental importance. They reveal that China exhibits the most significant home bias among all major countries and in nearly all scientific fields. Specifically, 57.2% of citations to Chinese articles come from other Chinese researchers, compared to 37.1% for the United States. After adjusting for home bias, China's rank in global citation metrics drops from second to fourth, behind the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. This study unequivocally demonstrates that China's apparent rise in citation rankings is significantly overstated due to this home bias.

The findings of this study underscore the urgent need to address the significant role of home bias in distorting the global perception of scientific output quality. The substantial home bias in Chinese citations suggests that factors other than scholarly merit, such as political or strategic considerations, may be driving many of these citations. This insight has profound implications for evaluating scientific research globally, underscoring the necessity for more nuanced metrics to account for such biases.

This study reiterates the critical importance of adjusting citation metrics for home bias. Doing so is crucial to obtain a more accurate assessment of global scientific output. While China's growth in scientific publications is undeniable, the quality and impact of this research may be lower than citation counts suggest. Policymakers and academic institutions must consider these findings seriously when evaluating international research contributions and developing strategies to promote genuine scientific excellence.

Questions:

1) How would historical assessments of global scientific output have changed if home bias adjustments had?been applied?to citation metrics from the beginning? ??

2) What are the current implications of home bias in scientific citations for international collaborations and funding allocations? ??

3) How will emerging technologies and methodologies in scientometrics help mitigate the effects of home bias and provide a more accurate picture of global scientific contributions? ??

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Qiu, S., Steinwender, C., & Azoulay, P. (2024). Paper Tiger? Chinese Science and Home Bias in Citations. National Bureau of Economic Research. Retrieved from?https://www.nber.org/papers/w32468