Unveiling citation bias in economics: Taste-based discrimination against Chinese-authored papers

2025/04/21 by Xiaoliang Yang, Peng Zhou · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Computer Science · #Media Influence and Politics #Names, Identity, and Discrimination Research #Authorship Attribution and Profiling

paper · doi:10.1016/j.labeco.2025.102725

openalex publication_date 2025/04/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23

Abstract

We present evidence for taste-based discrimination against Chinese first authors in economic citations. We utilize a gravity model of citations and interpret the bias as a negative effect of "cultural distance". After controlling for quality as well as author-, paper-, and journal-specific attributes, publications with a Chinese first author receive 14% less citations. Coauthoring with non-Chinese does not mitigate the discrimination at all. While being affiliated with a US-based institute slightly reduces the bias by dampening the perceived "Chineseness", it is not big enough to offset the discriminatory effect. Moreover, the COVID pandemic exacerbated the discriminatory effect. The forensic analysis narrowed down the source of discrimination to non-Chinese top economists from non-US affiliations.

Citations

• Racial Discrimination in the Labor Market: Theory and Empirics
• Reducing discrimination in the field: Evidence from an awareness raising intervention targeting gender biases in student evaluations of teaching
• Count (and count-like) data in finance
• Non-White scientists appear on fewer editorial boards, spend more time under review, and receive fewer citations

Discussions

• In our recent paper published in Labour Economics, we find that Chinese first-authored papers are 14% less cited (after controlling for paper quality and other confounding factors) due to taste-based [bsky, 1 points, 0 comments]

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