Specialization trends in economics research: A large‐scale study using natural language processing and citation analysis.

This article conducts a comprehensive analysis of specialization trends within and across fields of economics research. We collect data on 24,273 articles published between 1970 and 2016 in general research economics outlets and employ machine learning techniques to enrich the collected data. Result...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Economic Inquiry Vol. 63; no. 1; pp. 289 - 330
Main Authors: Galiani, Sebastian, Gálvez, Ramiro H., Nachman, Ian
Format: Article
Published: Wiley-Blackwell Jan2025
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Online Access:View this record in EBSCOhost
Description
Summary:This article conducts a comprehensive analysis of specialization trends within and across fields of economics research. We collect data on 24,273 articles published between 1970 and 2016 in general research economics outlets and employ machine learning techniques to enrich the collected data. Results indicate that theory and econometric methods papers are becoming increasingly specialized, with a narrowing scope and steady or declining citations from outside economics and from other fields of economics research. Conversely, applied papers are covering a broader range of topics, receiving more extramural citations from fields like medicine, and psychology. Trends in applied theory articles are unclear.