Who is the Most Sought-After Economist? Ranking Economists Using Google Trends

Tom Coupé

Working Papers in Economics from University of Canterbury, Department of Economics and Finance

Abstract: This paper uses Google Trends to rank economists and discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using Google Trends compared with other ranking methods, like those based on citations or downloads. I find that search intensity rankings based on Google Trends data are only modestly correlated with more traditional measures of scholarly impact; hence, search intensity statistics can provide additional information, allowing one to show a more comprehensive picture of academics’ impact. In addition, search intensity rankings can help to illustrate the variety in economists’ careers that can lead to fame and allows a comparison of the current impact of both contemporaneous and past economists. Complete rankings can be found at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/NHZJLA.

Keywords: Economists; rankings; Google Trends; performance measurement (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A11 B30 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 42 pages
Date: 2021-02-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-big, nep-cwa, nep-hpe and nep-sog
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cbt:econwp:21/02

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