Causal Claims in Economics

Prashant Garg and Thiemo Fetzer

Papers from arXiv.org

Abstract: As economics scales, a key bottleneck is representing what papers claim in a comparable, aggregable form. We introduce evidence-annotated claim graphs that map each paper into a directed network of standardized economic concepts (nodes) and stated relationships (edges), with each edge labeled by evidentiary basis, including whether it is supported by causal inference designs or by non-causal evidence. Using a structured multi-stage AI workflow, we construct claim graphs for 44,852 economics papers from 1980-2023. The share of causal edges rises from 7.7% in 1990 to 31.7% in 2020. Measures of causal narrative structure and causal novelty are positively associated with top-five publication and long-run citations, whereas non-causal counterparts are weakly related or negative.

Date: 2025-01, Revised 2026-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe, nep-sog and nep-tid
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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http://arxiv.org/pdf/2501.06873 Latest version (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Causal Claims in Economics (2024)
Working Paper: Causal Claims in Economics (2024)
Working Paper: Causal Claims in Economics (2024)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:arx:papers:2501.06873

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