As suggested by Jian-Feng Yao, here is the Mathematical Citation Quotient (MCQ) for statistics journals, as we did already for probability journals in a previous post. We refer to this previous post for a presentation of the MCQ. We recall that the MCQ is computed just like the impact factor, except that

• the citing window has a width of 5 years instead of 1 year (well adapted to mathematics);
• the citing population is formed only by journals indexed in the MR database (not well adapted to applied statistics).

1. Yao 2014-09-17

For the Top 10 in this MCQ ranking, it is quite interesting to have look on their respective ranking according to the JCR 2013 5-year impact factors. Both are calculated using a past period of 5 years; the only difference is then the citing population (Math Reviews versus Web of Science):

Journal AoS JRSSB Biometrika EJS JASA JMVA ScanJS StatSin AAS SPL
MCQ 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
JCR 13 2 1 5 7 3 9 8 6 4 10

The correlation coefficient between two rankings is 0.65 which is significantly positive, but still away from 1. This attests the difference between journals indexed by Math Reviews and Web of Science, that is the later include also very applied statistical journals such as in bio-statistics, business statistics, which are likely excluded from Math reviews.

Undoubtedly, Aos and JRSSB are the top two statistical journals by their influence in general while SPL is the weakest one among these ten. The largest delta 9-4=5 is observed with AAS (Annals of Applied Statistics): the journal seems to have a much wider audience outside the traditional statistical community.

2. Djalil Chafaï 2014-09-19

Thanks, Jian-Feng for this interesting comment. The success of Electronic Journal of Statistics (EJS) is also interesting (the journal is relatively recent).

3. Xi'an 2014-09-26

Interesting parallel paths of Series B and AoS. Web of Science reported a 5-year impact factor of 5.71 for JRSS Series B, which shows a considerable difference with MCQ and can be in part explained by the fact that Series B is a methodology rather than theory journal, hence more likely to be cited outside the strict boundaries of the journals covered by MCQ. In comparison, the Annals of Statistics impact factor seems to be 3.94, which is coherent with the fact that AoS is more likely to be quoted in mathematically oriented journals…

4. Djalil Chafaï 2014-09-26

Absolutely. The MR population used to compute the MCQ is not optimal for “non theoretical” journals. However, its “shows” the “impact” in “maths”.