Monday, January 11, 2010

Massively Misrepresenting the Econoblogosphere: "Blogometrics"

The lead article for 2010 in the Eastern Economic Journal (vol. 36, no. 1, pp. 1-10) is "Blogometrics" Franklin G. Mixon, Jr. and Kamal P. Upadhaya. It claims to rank economics bloggers, blogs, and universities, by the scholarly impact of the bloggers in question. This may be a worthy effort, but there is a complete mystery as to the set of blogs that they use in this study, with it apparently being tilted heavily towards Austrian or libertarian blogs, with none "further left" than either Brad DeLong's blog (a former official in the center-left Clinton presidency) and Mark Thoma's Economists View. While highly read Mankiw, Marginal Revolution, and Freakonomics are included, Krugman's blog is not, with him probably being more "progressive" than any of the 83 bloggers listed, of whom it is probably a race between DeLong, Thoma, and the late Paul Samuelson as to who is the "lefiest." As it is, of the 40 blogs considered, at least 5 are Austrian and at least another 5 are overwhelmingly libertarian. In terms of university rankings, while Harvard does come in at #1, George Mason is #16, while Princeton is not even on the list of 44 universities ranked. In the body of the paper it is stated once that they are studying the "main contributors to some of the most well-known blogs," although no method of selecting those is provided. On one table they give average page views per day from the EconDirectory of Gongol for 16 of their 40 blogs. Only three of these blogs are in the top ten of Gongol, with only only 7 of them coming in above the 426 for Econospeak (rank for Dec. 09, 59th), with one of them, macroblog, coming in at zero, and another that was listed as 963, at zero for the latest listing. I list below their list and top 40 from Gongol's most current posting, with commas separating the names of the blogs from the respective lists. I also note that they overstate the dominance of Americans in the econoblogosphere.

Mixon-Upadhaya Gongol
(rank by scholarly impact of
"main contributors) (rank by AVPD)

Becker-Posner, Calculated Risk
Greg Mankiw's blog, Michael Shedlock
RGE Monitor, Big Picture
Inside the Economist's Mind, Marginal Revolution
Neuroeconomics, Naked Capitalism
Organizaion & Markets, Gregory Mankiw
Freakonomics, Baseline Scenario
Game Theorist, Economist's View
Vox Baby, Tax Prof
John Lott's Blog, Credit Writedowns
Grasping Reality with Both Hands, VoxEU
Daniel W. Drezner, Coyote Blog
Marginal Revolution, European Tribune
Economist.Mom.com, Gongol
macroblog, Financial Armageddon
Core Economics, Carpe Diem
Environmental Economics, Overcoming Bias
EconLog, Half Sigma
Cafe Hayek, Angry Economist
Division of Labour, Carl Futia
The Sports Economists, Angry Bear
The Austrian Economists, Triple Pundit
Hypothetical Bias, Economic Edge
Dynamist.com, QandQ
Economics Roundtable, Mess that Greenspan Made
Economist's View, Trader Mike
Mises Economics Blog, EconBrowser
Adam Smith's Lost Legacy, Tim Worstall
timharford.com, Economic Populist
Economic Principals, Wages of Wins
the Attention Economy, John Lott
Reasonable Bystanders, Fistful of Euros
Newmark's Door, Ekonomi Turk
Market Power, Willisms
ElectEcon, Visualizing Economics
Equinometrics, Random Roger's Big Picture
Knowledge Problem, Art Diamond
The Perfect Substitute, Environmental Economics
The Blog of Diminishing Returns, Bonddad Blog
The Capital Spectator, Roth and Co.

17 comments:

  1. Have made two efforts to show the Gongol list, but it is not there. Will try to list it later below, but must go now. Sorry.

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  2. that may say something about eej which i dont read.
    but publish or perish seems non-ideologically based mostly; l=r.

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  3. Why not list the top 50 from Gongol's list?

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  4. I'm not on the list either, so maybe they were just pretty random about how they picked the blogs.

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  5. Traffic ratings from January 6, 2010 - by average daily pageviews

    Rank Site Page Views Change Pageview Ratio ...making this the ___ of business/econ websites:
    1 Calculated Risk 59955 100.00% USA Today
    2 Michael Shedlock 52803 88.07% Wall Street Journal
    3 Big Picture 39844 66.46% New York Times
    4 Marginal Revolution 31367 52.32% New York Times
    5 Naked Capitalism 29391 49.02% New York Times
    6 Gregory Mankiw 15806 26.36% Chicago Tribune
    7 Baseline Scenario 9682 16.15% Arizona Republic
    8 Economist's View 9625 16.05% Arizona Republic
    9 Tax Prof 9603 16.02% Arizona Republic
    10 Credit Writedowns 8311 13.86% Newark Star-Ledger
    11 VoxEU 7142 11.91% San Diego Union-Tribune
    12 Coyote Blog 5981 9.98% San Jose Mercury-News
    13 European Tribune 5852 9.76% Baltimore Sun
    14 Gongol 5846 9.75% Baltimore Sun
    15 Financial Armageddon 5164 8.61% Columbus Dispatch
    16 Carpe Diem 4838 8.07% St. Paul Pioneer Press
    17 Overcoming Bias 4632 7.73% Little Rock Democrat Gazette
    18 Half Sigma 4528 7.55% Omaha World-Herald
    19 Angry Economist 4054 6.76% Austin American-Statesman
    20 Carl Futia 3997 6.67% Austin American-Statesman
    21 Angry Bear 3994 6.66% Austin American-Statesman
    22 Triple Pundit 3622 6.04% Daily Herald (Suburban Chicago)
    23 Economic Edge 3572 5.96% Des Moines Register
    24 QandO 2883 4.81% Syracuse Post-Standard
    25 Mess that Greenspan Made 2145 3.58% Washington Times
    26 Trader Mike 2075 3.46% Wichita Eagle
    27 EconBrowser 2071 3.45% Jackson Clarion-Ledger
    28 Tim Worstall 1930 3.22% Flint Journal
    29 Economic Populist 1719 2.87% Portland Press Herald
    30 Wages of Wins 1582 2.64% Merrillville Post-Tribune
    31 John Lott 1544 2.58% Fayetteville Observer
    32 Fistful of Euros 1490 2.49% Cedar Rapids Gazette
    33 Ekonomi Turk (Turkish) 1433 2.39% Rockford Register Star
    34 Willisms 1225 2.04% Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin
    35 Visualizing Economics 1212 2.02% East Brunswick Home News Tribune
    36 Random Roger's Big Picture 1093 1.82% Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette
    37 Art Diamond 1084 1.81% Palm Springs Desert Sun
    38 Environmental Economics (Haab and Whitehead) 1039 1.73% Sioux City Journal
    39 Bonddad Blog 951 1.59% Waco Tribune-Herald
    40 Roth and Co. 947 1.58% Waco Tribune-Herald
    41 Newmark's Door 872 1.45% Victoria Advocate
    42 Fat Pitch Financials 826 1.38% La Crosse Tribune
    43 Political Calculations 815 1.36% La Crosse Tribune
    44 Accrued Interest 798 1.33% Great Falls Tribune
    45 Economic Perspectives from Kansas City 749 1.25% Racine Journal Times

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  6. Anonymous 1,

    Well, ironically to the extent that it has an ideological tilt (which it does not officially), it is more to the left heterodox end of the spectrum than the other way around. I am not sure if the paper was published to show even-handedness, or if the referees and editors simply did not notice the odd things about it.

    Anonymous 2 and 3:

    Thanks for the list. I was about to do it and may still in the body of the post.

    Robin,

    I did notice your absence, which is odd given that yours is also a pretty widely read blog. Yours seems to be the only one of the GMU blogs that did not get listed (although there are probably some very obscure ones that did not that I have not heard of). Of course, yours is probably the least overtly ideological of the lot.

    It is possible that the whole thing is indeed random. I have contacted Mixon, and he professes innocence in all this, not supposedly noticing the large number of Austrian blogs and the pretty much complete absence of any "left heterodox" ones. However, he has not responded to my repeated requests for an explanation of how they did select their list of blogs.

    There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. What makes it especially bad is that the paper repeatedly makes it look like one should take all their tables and rankings seriously as measures of something based on blogs, but this is only meaningful if one is indeed either dealing with a truly random sample that reflects the state of the econoblogosphere, or one is dealing with the top blogs by some measure, which is what their verbiage suggests. Neither is the case at all, for whatever reason.

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  7. Anonymous 1,

    Well, ironically to the extent that it has an ideological tilt (which it does not officially), it is more to the left heterodox end of the spectrum than the other way around. I am not sure if the paper was published to show even-handedness, or if the referees and editors simply did not notice the odd things about it.

    Anonymous 2 and 3:

    Thanks for the list. I was about to do it and may still in the body of the post.

    Robin,

    I did notice your absence, which is odd given that yours is also a pretty widely read blog. Yours seems to be the only one of the GMU blogs that did not get listed (although there are probably some very obscure ones that did not that I have not heard of). Of course, yours is probably the least overtly ideological of the lot.

    It is possible that the whole thing is indeed random. I have contacted Mixon, and he professes innocence in all this, not supposedly noticing the large number of Austrian blogs and the pretty much complete absence of any "left heterodox" ones. However, he has not responded to my repeated requests for an explanation of how they did select their list of blogs.

    There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. What makes it especially bad is that the paper repeatedly makes it look like one should take all their tables and rankings seriously as measures of something based on blogs, but this is only meaningful if one is indeed either dealing with a truly random sample that reflects the state of the econoblogosphere, or one is dealing with the top blogs by some measure, which is what their verbiage suggests. Neither is the case at all, for whatever reason.

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  8. Sorry about the double postings. Also, I see that the second list is in the post, but in a very confusing way. Sorry about that. Any given line has two blog titles in it, with no obvious demarcation (maybe I'll go stick colons in).

    I should also note that while I make labels here about Austrians and GMU, I like GMU and I actively participate on some of the blogs coming out of there from time to time, including Robin Hanson's Overcoming Bias on occasion. It is odd that an utterly obscure blog out of there such as The Perfect Substitute got into this study while Hanson's blog did not.

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  9. Since I am snarking here, I shall note also that in general the GMU blogsters are a lively bunch who welcome dissenting views and good debate in an open-minded way. I will, however, take this opportunity to poke hard at the unnamed (although I know the name and identity) individual who "manages" the generally intelligent EconLog blog of Bryan Caplan, Arnold Kling, and David Henderson. This individual is a censorious and arrogant hypocrite who should be defenestrated by the co-bloggers.

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  10. I'm always surprised to see myself in such lists of "economics blogs" for while I do write a lot about the subject I'm not actually an economist. Just an interested amateur. Still.

    On the subject of bias. It may or may not be bias in the selection of the blogs. It may be a bias in the blogosphere itself. (Please note the "maybe"!)

    It's long been a discussion in the UK blogosphere about why there seems to be an over-representation of libertarianish (and Austrian as well) views. The general conclusion (without anything so grubby as actual proof) is that it is those ideas which are under-represented in mainstream discourse which have taken to the blogs most enthusiastically.

    This was certainly true a couple of years back. Very little mainstream Tory or Labour interest, a lot of radical free market and the opposite, communist/Trotskyist on the other side. There is a "centre" nowq in UK blogging but it tends to be political, not economic. In the latter subject it still seems to be those out of step with the zeitgeist who have a greater presence on the blogs.

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  11. Thanks for the post. I took a quick look at the Board of Advisors in making a questionaire for econobloggers, and the list, and set it aside to read later.

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  12. Tim,

    I would agree that there are probably more libertarian oriented blogs, including in the upper reaches of those read, compared to the actual presence of such economists in the profession as a whole, however that is measured. This also manifests itself in the large number of lively blogs coming out George Mason, and the authors are not incorrect in claiming that if one ranks econ departments by the scholarly impact of its bloggers, Mason will come out punching well above where it does by other ranking systems.

    It may in fact be the case that the authors really did somehow "pick randomly" the blogs that they used. However, if they did so, they should somewhere in the paper say what the method of this "random picking" was, and they do not even say that it was random or that it was "picking." One simply reads of "some important blogs," with some picked not at all important by any measure in my view. This is what raises questions, especially given the complete absence of any blogs at the other end of the spectrum, and there certainly are some that do not so badly on those Gongol rankings (and the list provided by Anonymous 3 goes to #45 on Gongol, which happens to be the currently rising blog out of UMKC).

    A final comment on Robin Hanson's Overcoming Bias, the only major Mason blog not included, is that it is only marginally an econ blog, regularly dealing with non-econ subjects such as philosphy and science, and with less of a clear ideological orientation, although the general atmosphere there tends to the pro-free market.

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  13. Rdan,

    BTW, I am not at all clear what you are referring to in your comment. What Board of Advisors? What questionnaire? What list? Is this something strictly to do with Angry Bear (which you run, just for those who do not know)?

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  14. "another 5 are overwhelmingly libertarian"

    I doubt they subscribe to "property is theft":

    150 years of libertarian

    Iain
    An Anarchist FAQ

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  15. Barkley - I suspect rdan was temporarily confused b/c of the Kaufmann Institute e-mail that has been going around.

    For me, the clincher on the "this research was badly done" is Inside the Economist's Mind. Fine book, but in the past year they haven't had an original post other than (1) the Sad News about Paul Samuelson's death and (2) reprinting a comment about P Samuelson from Adam Smith's Lost Legacy.

    Everything else has been noting an edition of the book (German, Australian, Russian, pirated), or that Wiley (now the publisher) has posted a sample of the book online.

    There was no reason for that blog, specifically, to make the league tables, let alone "this ITEM blog ranks fourth among all economics blogs (table 2)."

    If Mixon Jr. and Mupadhyaya were running sports leagues, Pompey and Hull City would be played for the Premier League Championship. (Or, if you prefer, the Royals and Nationals would have battled in the World Series.)

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  16. Ken,

    I think you are right about Rdan. He communicated with me offlist and may yet reappear here. It is the Kaufmann questionnaire (never sent to me or anybody else here that I am aware of), and I gather it is rather tilted ideologically in some of its questions.

    I agree that Inside the Economists' Minds is not a proper blog to speak of, but a marketing device for that book. Whether the authors had an agenda or not, they really blew it (and I am a bit shocked that the EEJ did not catch some of this nonsense before publishing the paper).

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  17. Barkley you must have missed the e-mail. The Kaufman survey is here:
    http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/JJHCZV3

    The Board of Advisors here:

    Alex Tabarrok Marginal Revolution
    Allison Schrager Free Exchange
    Donald Marron DMarron.com
    Laurie Harting Palgrave Econolog
    Lynne Kiesling Knowledge Problem
    Mark Thoma Economist's View
    Mark Perry Carpe Diem
    Michael Mandel SouthMountainEconomics
    Nick Schulz Enterprise Blog
    Paul Kedrosky Infectious Greed
    Robert X. Cringley I, Cringely
    Scott Jagow NPR's Scratch Pad
    Wade Roush Xconomy.com
    Yves Smith Naked Capitalism
    ___________________________
    As to the question itself (I deleted a comment, it started turning into a blog post).

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