This database, currently covering the period January 1997 to October 2007,
surveys only journal articles (original research reports and review
articles) indexed by Thomson Scientific. Articles are assigned to a
category based on the journals in which they were published and Thomson
Scientific’s journal-to-category field definition scheme. Both
articles tabulated and citation counts to those articles are for the period
indicated. Naturally, scientists publishing large numbers of papers have a
greater likelihood of collecting more citations than scientists publishing
fewer papers. This ranking is by total citations. For articles with
multiple authors, each author receives full, not fractional, citation
credit. Another ranking could be based on citations per paper, which
reveals weighted impact.
The first four names on the list were frequent co-authors of numerous
highly cited papers dealing with law, finance, and governance. Other topics
represented in the highly cited papers of the others on the list include
theories of growth and development, fair trade, monetary policy and
inflation, as well as contracts, strategic management, and knowledge
assets. Essential Science Indicators lists authors ranked in the top 1% for
a field over a given period, based on total citations. For the current
version, 930 authors are listed in the field of economics and business,
meaning that a total of approximately 93,000 author records were reviewed
to obtain these results.