Working Paper: NBER ID: w23698
Authors: 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.
Keywords: extramural citations; economic scholarship; empirical research; interdisciplinary influence
JEL Codes: A11; A12; A13; A14; B41; C18
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| empirical papers cited more frequently than theoretical ones (A14) | greater interdisciplinary engagement (Y80) |
| diversity of economics fields (A12) | extramural influence (O36) |
| rise in empirical research (C90) | increased citations from other disciplines (Y80) |
| rise in extramural citations to economics (A14) | increasing recognition of economic research's scientific value (A14) |
| shift in citation patterns (A14) | increased references to economic theory (E65) |