What drives citations of frontier application publications?

Abstract

A large body of literature exists on analysis of citation and reviews of application of efficiency frontier. However,the reviews that assessed the determinants of citation counts did not focus on frontier applications. We contributeto the literature by identifying the drivers of citations of frontier application publications on Ghana. We employedtwo-part mixture modelling with inverse hyperbolic sine (IHS) transformation of the second part, which wasfound to be more appropriate than single equation IHS transformation modelling, for our data. Use of stochasticfrontier analysis or data envelopment analysis did not drive citations counts. However, quality of journals inwhich frontier application studies were published and accessibility of the journals to readers, drive citationcounts. Authors, institutions and funders of studies on frontier applications may consider these over collaborations, in seeking growth in citation counts.