Do Changes in Journal Rank Influence Publication Output? Evidence from China

Abstract Despite considerable progress in understanding the journal evaluation system in China, empirical evidence remains limited regarding the impact of changes in journal rank (CJR) on scientific output. By employing the difference-in-differences (DID) framework, we exploit panel data from 2015 to 2019 to examine the effect of changes in journal ranks on the number of publications by Chinese researchers. Our analysis involves comparing two groups—journals that experienced a change in ranking and journals that did not—before and after the change in ranking. Our analysis reveals a statistically significant negative effect. The results suggest that CJR has led to a 14.81% decrease in the number of publications per 100, relative to the sample mean value. The observed negative impact is consistently confirmed through robustness tests that involve excluding journals that do not adhere to best practices, removing retracted publications from the calculation of publication numbers, and randomly selecting journals with changed ranks for estimation. We also observed that CJR exhibits a widespread but unequal effect. The negative effect is particularly pronounced in the academic domains of life sciences and physical sciences, in journals that experience declines in rank, and in less-prestigious universities. We contribute to the literature on how changes in journal rankings affect researchers’ academic behavior and the determinants of scholarly publication productivity.