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Inside Job or Deep Impact? Using Extramural Citations to Assess Economic Scholarship

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  • Joshua Angrist
  • Pierre Azoulay
  • Glenn Ellison
  • Ryan Hill
  • Susan Feng Lu

Abstract

Does academic economic research produce material of scientific value, or are academic economists writing only for clients and peers? Is economics scholarship uniquely insular? We address these questions by quantifying interactions between economics and other disciplines. Changes in the impact of economic scholarship are measured here by the way other disciplines cite us. We document a clear rise in the extramural influence of economic research, while also showing that economics is increasingly likely to reference other social sciences. A breakdown of extramural citations by economics fields shows broad field impact. Differentiating between theoretical and empirical papers classified using machine learning, we see that much of the rise in economics’ extramural influence reflects growth in citations to empirical work. This parallels a growing share of empirical cites within economics. At the same time, the disciplines of computer science and operations research are mostly influenced by economic theory.

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  • Joshua Angrist & Pierre Azoulay & Glenn Ellison & Ryan Hill & Susan Feng Lu, 2017. "Inside Job or Deep Impact? Using Extramural Citations to Assess Economic Scholarship," NBER Working Papers 23698, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:23698
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    Cited by:

    1. Mueller-Langer, Frank & Fecher, Benedikt & Harhoff, Dietmar & Wagner, Gert G., 2019. "Replication studies in economics—How many and which papers are chosen for replication, and why?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 48(1), pages 62-83.
    2. Lutz Bornmann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2019. "Normalisation of citation impact in economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 841-884, August.
    3. Miguel Atienza & Guillermo Armando Ronda-Pupo & Nicholas Phelps, 2019. "Bridges over troubled water? Journals, geographers and economists in the field of economy and space 1980–2017," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 51(8), pages 1800-1823, November.
    4. Kang, Yankun & Leng, Xuan & Liao, Yunxiang & Zheng, Shilin, 2024. "Information disclosure, spillovers, and knowledge accumulation," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    5. John Gibson, 2021. "The micro‐geography of academic research: How distinctive is economics?," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 68(4), pages 467-484, September.
    6. Kim‐Sau Chung & Meng‐Yu Liang & Melody Lo, 2022. "On the information contents of indirect citations," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 55(1), pages 156-173, February.
    7. Battistin, Erich & Ovidi, Marco, 2017. "Rising Stars," IZA Discussion Papers 11198, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Koffi, Marlene, 2021. "Innovative ideas and gender inequality," CLEF Working Paper Series 35, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    9. Antonin Macé, 2023. "The Limits of Citation Counts," Working Papers halshs-01630095, HAL.
    10. Mark J. McCabe & Frank Mueller-Langer, 2019. "Does Data Disclosure Increase Citations? Empirical Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Leading Economics Journals," JRC Working Papers on Digital Economy 2019-02, Joint Research Centre.
    11. Olivér Kovács, 2019. "Grounding Complexity Economics in Framing Modern Governance," Acta Oeconomica, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 69(4), pages 571-594, December.
    12. Peter Andre & Armin Falk, 2021. "Policy relevant, multidisciplinary, disruptive: What kind of research do economists want?," ECONtribute Policy Brief Series 023, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    13. Kyle Siler & Philippe Vincent-Lamarre & Cassidy R Sugimoto & Vincent Larivière, 2022. "Cumulative advantage and citation performance of repeat authors in scholarly journals," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(4), pages 1-17, April.
    14. Keith H. Coble, 2020. "Relevant and/or Elegant Economics," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 102(2), pages 392-399, March.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • A12 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
    • A13 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Relation of Economics to Social Values
    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • C18 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Methodolical Issues: General

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