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The Focus of Academic Economics: Before and After the Crisis

Author

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  • Ernest Aigner

    (Vienna University of Economics and Business)

  • Matthias Aistleitner

    (Johannes Kepler University)

  • Florentin Glotzl

    (Vienna University of Economics and Business)

  • Jakob Kapeller

    (Johannes Kepler University)

Abstract

Has the global financial crisis of 2007ff had a visible impact on the economics profession? To answer this question we employ a bibliometric approach and compare the content and orientation of economic literature before and after the crisis with reference to two different samples: A large-scale sample consisting of more than 440,000 articles published between 1956 and 2016 and a smaller sample of 400 top-cited papers before and after the crisis. Our results suggest that unlike the Great Depression of the 1930s the current financial crisis did not lead to any major theoretical or methodological changes in contemporary economics, although the topic of financial instability received increased attention after the crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Ernest Aigner & Matthias Aistleitner & Florentin Glotzl & Jakob Kapeller, 2018. "The Focus of Academic Economics: Before and After the Crisis," Working Papers Series 75, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    • Handle: RePEc:thk:wpaper:75
    DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.3228774
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    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Levy & Tamir Mayer & Alon Raviv, 2020. "Academic Scholarship in Light of the 2008 Financial Crisis: Textual Analysis of NBER Working Papers," Working Papers 2020-01, Bar-Ilan University, Department of Economics.
    2. Levy, Daniel & Mayer, Tamir & Raviv, Alon, 2022. "Economists in the 2008 financial crisis: Slow to see, fast to act," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 60(C).
    3. Thiago Dumont Oliveira & Marwil J. Dávila-Fernández, 2020. "From modelmania to datanomics? The rise of mathematical and quantitative methods in three top economics journals," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 123(1), pages 51-70, April.
    4. Jan Schulz & Kerstin Hötte & Daniel M. Mayerhoffer, 2024. "Pluralist economics in an era of polycrisis," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 5(2), pages 201-218, September.
    5. Rommel, Florian & Urban, Janina, 2022. "A Survey of German Economics," VfS Annual Conference 2022 (Basel): Big Data in Economics 264131, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    6. Aigner, Ernest, 2021. "Global dynamics and country-level development in academic economics: An explorative cognitive-bibliometric study," SRE-Discussion Papers 07/2021, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    7. Prante, Franz J. & Barmucci, Alessandro & Hein, Eckhard & Truger, Achim, 2019. "Interactive macroeconomics: A pluralist simulator," IPE Working Papers 117/2019, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    8. Kurowski, Łukasz & Smaga, Paweł, 2023. "Analysing financial stability reports as crisis predictors with the use of text-mining," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 28(C).
    9. Costas Siriopoulos & Maria Skaperda, 2020. "Investing in mutual funds: are you paying for performance or for the ties of the manager?," Bulletin of Applied Economics, Risk Market Journals, vol. 7(2), pages 153-164.
    10. Urban, Janina & Rommel, Florian, 2020. "German economics: Its current form and content," Working Paper Serie des Instituts für Ökonomie 56, Hochschule für Gesellschaftsgestaltung (HfGG), Institut für Ökonomie.
    11. Jaque Herrera, Gabriela & Cárdenas-Retamal, Roberto & Barrales Henriquez, Daniel, 2022. "Tendencias en Publicaciones en Revistas Chilenas de Economía," Documentos de Trabajo 12, Estudios Nueva Economía.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    crisis; economics profession; economic journals; keyword analysis; paradigmatic development;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • B20 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - General
    • B26 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - Financial Economics
    • G01 - Financial Economics - - General - - - Financial Crises
    • N00 - Economic History - - General - - - General
    • N01 - Economic History - - General - - - Development of the Discipline: Historiographical; Sources and Methods

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