Article placement and market signalling

Does article placement by journal editors influence the number of citations an article receives? Articles that appear in eight top economics journals in 1990 are examined. Holding constant author quality, article length, journal quality and subject area, the empirical results show that being a lead article or the article placement position number in a journal issue have a statistically insignificant effect on the number of citations an article receives. The impact of favourable article placement on citations is initially positive, but diminishes over time. This finding is consistent with the hypothesis that journal editors use favourable article placement as non-monetary compensation to authors.