Violations of Standard Practices by Predatory Economics Journals

Abstract This study examines factors associated with journals’ violations of scholarly ethics, referred to as predatory practices. The investigation uses a sample of economics journals listed in Cabells’ Predatory Reports with data collected from this report and the journals’ websites. Journals in this sample (average age 6.6 years) committed, on average, 7.1 predatory practices (1.9 minor, 3.3 moderate, and 1.9 severe). Notably, 90.5% of journals had a website but only 53.4% made articles accessible. India (27%), U.S. and Canada (22.3%), Nigeria (16%), and China (8.1%) were the leading locations of predatory journals. By applying Poisson regression, we examine whether web presence, accessibility of articles, journal’s age, and journal’s region help explain the number and types of predatory practices. All these factors are statistically associated with the number of minor predatory practices followed by these journals. Further, a journal’s age and region relate to the number of both moderate and severe predatory practices, unambiguously signaling deceptive and unethical publishing practices. Economics journals from India (China) have more (less) predatory practices than other regions. The results suggest that as journals age, they tend to move across types of predatory practices, which may make journals appear less predatory.