Does the h-index for ranking of scientists really work?

Hirsch (2005) has proposed the h-index as a single-number criterion to evaluate the scientific output of a researcher (Ball, 2005): A scientist has index h if h of his/her N-p papers have at least h citations each, and the other (N-p - h) papers have fewer than h citations each. In a study on committee peer review (Bornmann & Daniel, 2005) we found that on average the h-index for successful applicants for post-doctoral research fellowships was consistently higher than for non-successful applicants.