Journal of Economic Literature codes classification system (JEL)

Jussi Heikkilä

EconStor Preprints from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

Abstract: The Journal of Economic Literature codes classification system (JEL) published by the American Economic Association (AEA) is the de facto standard classification system for research literature in economics. The JEL classification system is used to classify articles, dissertations, books, book reviews, and working papers in EconLit, a database maintained by the AEA. Over time, it has evolved and extended to a system with over 850 subclasses. This paper reviews the history and development of the JEL classification system, describes the current version, and provides a selective overview of its uses and applications in research. The JEL codes classification system has been adopted by several publishers, and their instructions are reviewed. There are interesting avenues for future research as the JEL classification system has been surprisingly little used in existing bibliometric and scientometric research as well as in library classification systems.

Keywords: economics; JEL codes; classification systems; classifications; bibliometrics; scientometrics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A10 A14 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-his, nep-hpe and nep-sog
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Working Paper: Journal of Economic Literature codes classification system (JEL) (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:esprep:261388

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