Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Ranking Economics Papers

In a new paper titled "What Has Mattered to Economics Since 1970," economists E. Han Kim, Adair Morse, and Luigi Zingales identify the most cited articles published in economics journals since 1970. I will link to it as soon as the paper is posted. [Update: You can now click on the link.] Meanwhile, here are a few fun facts from the paper.

First, the winners:

The Most Cited Paper is Hal White's "A Heteroskedasticity-Consistent Covariance-Matrix Estimator and a Direct Test for Heteroskedasticity," Econometrica 1980, with 4318 citations in the Social Science Citation Index.

Next comes Kahneman and Tversky's 1979 article on "Prospect Theory - Analysis of Decision under Risk," Econometrica 1979, with 4085 cites.

In third place is Jensen and Meckling's "Theory of Firm - Managerial Behavior, Agency Costs and Ownership Structure," Journal of Financial Economics, 1976, with 3923 cites.

Next, the reliable home run hitters:

Only 146 journal articles published since 1970 have been cited more than 500 times. Within these 146 articles, an elite group of 11 economists authored or co-authored at least three. Robert Barro, Eugene Fama, and Joseph Stiglitz have six each. Michael Jensen follows with five; Robert Lucas and David Kreps with four; and Robert Engle, Lars Hansen, Robert Merton, Edward Prescott, and Stephen Ross have three each.

Finally, some naked self-promotion:

The author of this blog has one paper on the list, coauthored with David Romer and David Weil. Our paper, "A Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth" in the Quarterly Journal of Economics 1992, has 792 citations and is ranked number 65.

When I was writing this paper, I had no idea that it would become my most cited work.