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

Sebastian Galiani, Ramiro H. Gálvez and Ian Nachman

Economic Inquiry, 2025, vol. 63, issue 1, 289-329

Abstract: 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.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecin.13261

Related works:
Working Paper: Specialization Trends in Economics Research: A Large-Scale Study Using Natural Language Processing and Citation Analysis (2023)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:ecinqu:v:63:y:2025:i:1:p:289-329

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... s.aspx?ref=1465-7295

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Inquiry is currently edited by Tim Salmon

More articles in Economic Inquiry from Western Economic Association International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().