Rotten at the Top: A Different Form of Inaccessibility Among Top Economics Journals

Abstract

The credibility of academic research increasingly relies on the accessibility of digital material hosted online. However, our investigation into the top five economics journals over a ten-year period reveals a concerning trend: 51.5% of external hyperlinks are no longer accessible, resulting in link rot—a phenomenon where hyperlinks no longer function or no longer lead to the originally cited material. This decay undermines the reproducibility of research and poses challenges to maintaining the integrity of the academic record. We find that the likelihood of encountering link rot escalates as the age of the publication increases, with links in articles older than eight years being about 30% more likely to be inaccessible.

Keywords: links, posterity, link rot, accessibility, reproducibility, hyperlinks