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What have economists been doing for the last 50 years? A text analysis of published academic research from 1960-2010

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  • Kosnik, Lea-Rachel

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a text based exploratory study of over 20,000 academic articles published in seven top research journals from 1960-2010. The goal is to investigate the general research foci of economists over the last fifty years, how (if at all) they have changed over time, and what trends (if any) can be discerned from a broad body of the top academic research in the field. Of the 19 JEL-code based fields studied in the literature, most have retained a constant level of attention over the time period of this study, however, a notable exception is that of macroeconomics which has undergone a significantly diminishing level of research attention in the last couple of decades, across all the journals under study; at the same time, the "microfoundations" of macroeconomic papers appears to be increasing. Other results are also presented.

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  • Kosnik, Lea-Rachel, 2015. "What have economists been doing for the last 50 years? A text analysis of published academic research from 1960-2010," Economics Discussion Papers 2015-4, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:ifwedp:20154
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    11. Hancock, Guy & Liu, Yangxuan & Smith, Amanda R. & Plastina, Alejandro, 2020. "Motivations and Challenges of Cover Crop Utilization for Georgia Crop Production," Journal of the ASFMRA, American Society of Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers, vol. 2020.
    12. Ernest Aigner & Florentin Gloetzl & Matthias Aistleitner & Jakob Kapeller, 2018. "The focus of academic economics: before and after the crisis," ICAE Working Papers 75, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    13. Lea-Rachel Kosnik, 2016. "In Tandem Or Out Of Sync? Academic Economics Research And Public Policy Measures," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 34(1), pages 190-202, January.
    14. Lea Kosnik, 2016. "JEL Codes: What Do They Mean and Are They Used Consistently?," Working Papers 1011, University of Missouri-St. Louis, Department of Economics.
    15. Lea†Rachel Kosnik, 2018. "A Survey Of Jel Codes: What Do They Mean And Are They Used Consistently?," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(1), pages 249-272, February.
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    18. Lutz Bornmann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2024. "Recent Temporal Dynamics in Economics: Empirical Analyses of Annual Publications in Economic Fields," CESifo Working Paper Series 10881, CESifo.
    19. Mohamed M. Mostafa, 2023. "A one-hundred-year structural topic modeling analysis of the knowledge structure of international management research," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 3905-3935, August.
    20. Matthias Aistleitner & Stephan Puehringer, 2023. "Biased Trade Narratives and Its Influence on Development Studies: A Multi-level Mixed-Method Approach," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 35(6), pages 1322-1346, December.
    21. Koffi, Marlene, 2021. "Innovative ideas and gender inequality," CLEF Working Paper Series 35, Canadian Labour Economics Forum (CLEF), University of Waterloo.
    22. Allen Bellas & Lea-Rachel Kosnik, 2019. "Which leading journal leads? Idea diffusion in economics research journals," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(3), pages 901-921, September.
    23. Kube, Roland & Löschel, Andreas & Mertens, Henrik & Requate, Till, 2018. "Research trends in environmental and resource economics: Insights from four decades of JEEM," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 433-464.
    24. Ali Sina Önder & Sergey V. Popov & Sascha Schweitzer, 2021. "Leadership in Scholarship: Editors’ Appointments and the Profession’s Narrative," Working Papers in Economics & Finance 2021-05, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Business School, Economics and Finance Subject Group.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    text analysis; economics research; research diversity; topic analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • B4 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology

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