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Online accessibility of academic articles and the diversity of economics

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  • Boppart, Timo
  • Staub, Kevin

Abstract

A key aspect of generating new ideas is drawing from different elements of past knowledge and combining them into a new idea. In such a process, the diversity of ideas plays a central role. This paper examines the empirical question of how the internet affected the diversity of new research by making the existing literature accessible online. The internet marks a technological shock which affects how academic scientist search for and browse through published documents. Using article-level data from economics journals for the period 1991 to 2009, we document how online accessibility lead academic economists to draw from a more diverse set of literature for their articles, and to write articles which incorporated more diverse contents.

Suggested Citation

  • Boppart, Timo & Staub, Kevin, 2012. "Online accessibility of academic articles and the diversity of economics," VfS Annual Conference 2012 (Goettingen): New Approaches and Challenges for the Labor Market of the 21st Century 62040, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:vfsc12:62040
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    1. How did online journals change the economics literature?
      by Economic Logician in Economic Logic on 2012-06-05 19:55:00

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    Cited by:

    1. Katharina Rath & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2016. "Trends in economics publications represented by JEL categories between 2007 and 2013," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 23(9), pages 660-663, June.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • O31 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Innovation; Research and Development; Technological Change; Intellectual Property Rights - - - Innovation and Invention: Processes and Incentives
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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