Why Is the Journal of Agricultural & Applied Economics Not in the Major Citation Indices and Does It Really Matter?

Why is it that we care about citation indices? Like proverbial silverback gorillas, we beat our chests at every change in our ‘‘h-index’’ or grunt loudly at every e-mail alert of a new citation to our papers. What does it all really mean though? Is there some deeper significance to a citation index? Does having a journal in the index enhance its own or sponsoring association’s reputation? Inquiring minds want to know. In reality, some administrators pay attention to citations and papers in indexed journals for promotion and tenure processes. At some level, having others recognize our work and use it is the only real reward we get for our efforts in research. Some may argue that indices are selfperpetuating. An author only cites articles that are already in indices and, thus, journals that are not in indices do not receive attention and are then never included in future editions of the index. Others argue that they are the definitive and final authority on journal, article, and scientist quality. The simple fact at this point is that the Journal of Agricultural and Applied Economics (hereafter referred to as the Journal) is not included in either the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) published by Thomas Reuters or Scopus published by Elsevier. Two relevant questions for our association are: 1) Why is the Journal not included in these indices? (2) Does it really matter that we are not? In this article, we examine the possible reasons for our previously rejected applications to be indexed with available data from the Journal and other journals. Ultimately, we will offer our own answer to the question of whether indexing really matters to the Journal and to the Southern Agricultural Economics Association.