The International Journal for Re-Views in Empirical Economics (IREE) is the only journal in economics solely dedicated to publishing replications. Recently, IREE was evaluated by TOP Factor. TOP Factor is an initiative launched by the Center for Open Science to assess journals according to “a values-aligned rating of journal policies as a counterweight to metrics that incentivize journals to publish exciting results regardless of credibility” (see here). The assessment of IREE‘s journal policies resulted in a journal score of 13 points. This puts IREE in 4th place among all 136 economic journals rated by TOP Factor, ahead of the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Plos One, and Science.

TOP Factor provides an alternative to metrics such as the journal impact factor (JIF). It constitutes a first step towards evaluating journals based on their quality of process and implementation of scholarly values. “Too often, journals are compared using metrics that have nothing to do with their quality,” says Evan Mayo-Wilson, Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington. “The TOP Factor measures something that matters. It compares journals based on whether they require transparency and methods that help reveal the credibility of research findings.” (see COS announcement of TOP factor, 2020).

TOP Factor is based on the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines, a framework of eight standards that summarize behaviors that can improve transparency and reproducibility of research such as transparency of data, materials, code, and research design, preregistration, and replication.

Editor Martina Grunow announced that she was very pleased with this rating, as TOP Factor reflects exactly what IREE stands for: reducing the publication bias towards literally incredible and non-reproducible results and the resulting “publish-or-perish” culture. Like TOP Factor, IREE promotes the reproducibility and transparency of published results and scientific discourse in economics based on high-quality and credible research results.