Where Are the Poor in Mainstream International Economics?

The present article assesses the scientific attention given by mainstream international economics to poverty and poor countries. We apply bibliometric techniques to analyze 1,800 articles published over a 40‐year period (1971–2010) in the most orthodox journal in the field of international economics, the Journal of International Economics (JIE). We found that authors who have published articles in the JIE have mostly developed studies focused on “Meso” (industry, region) and microeconomic policies and issues of “International Trade” and “International Finances,” and, are usually of the “Formal” and “Formal and Empirical” types. As a topic, poverty is very marginal: only 13 articles published in the JIE, less than one percent of the total, address this matter in any of its dimensions. Furthermore, in the empirical articles, no country among those included in the group “Less Developed Countries” received particular attention. The excessive focus on mathematical accuracy (i.e., formalization), and the concomitant limited capacity to deal with the social problems of the real world, are effective challenges to authors in the field of international economics and, in particular, to those who publish in the JIE, which must be overcome if we do not want international economics to become a “cyborg” science.