The new Australian Business Deans Council journal ranking is out, ending an assessment process on the agenda for way over two years (CMM August 28 2017).

The new list is the work of seven expert panels, which added 157 journals and dropped 241 which were on the 2016 list.

All up, the A* category has the least journals (199), 7.4 per cent and C (982) the most, 36.6 per cent. “A feature of journal ranking lists is often a certain stickiness. It is undoubtedly easier to upgrade journals than to downgrade them. … The ABDC has sought to be vigilant on this, particularly when it comes to the A* category; some journals have gone up and others down, but the proportion of A*s on the List has roughly remained the same,” the council; reports. The econometrics category is judged high quality, with 20 per cent of 32 journals ranked A.* “Other economics” has 69 per cent of 100 rated journals rated C.