IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/sol/wpaper/2013-280927.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Methods used in economic research. An empirical study of trends and levels

Author

Listed:
  • Martin Paldam

Abstract

The methodological approaches used in economic research are analyzed on a sample of all 3,415 regular research papers published in 10 general interest journals every 5th year from 1997 to 2017. The number of papers published increases by 3.3% p.a. The papers are classified into three main groups with eight sub-groups: The main groups of theory and empirics are almost equally large. Most empiric papers use the classic method, which derives an operational model from theory and run regressions. Two main trends are highly significant: The fraction of theoretical papers has fallen by 26 pp (percentage points), while the fraction of papers using the classic method has increased by 15 pp. Almost 10% papers using the classic method have been analyzed using meta-analysis, which show that the results reported in the typical paper are exaggerated. There is little reason to believe that other methods have smaller problems.

Suggested Citation

  • Martin Paldam, 2019. "Methods used in economic research. An empirical study of trends and levels," Working Papers CEB 19-002, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    • Handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/280927
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://dipot.ulb.ac.be/dspace/bitstream/2013/280927/3/wp19002.pdf
    File Function: Œuvre complète ou partie de l'œuvre
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Joshua Angrist & Pierre Azoulay & Glenn Ellison & Ryan Hill & Susan Feng Lu, 2017. "Economic Research Evolves: Fields and Styles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 107(5), pages 293-297, May.
    2. Garret Christensen & Edward Miguel, 2018. "Transparency, Reproducibility, and the Credibility of Economics Research," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 920-980, September.
    3. Lenka Fiala & Sigrid Suetens, 2017. "Transparency and cooperation in repeated dilemma games: a meta study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 20(4), pages 755-771, December.
    4. Bergh, Andreas & Wichardt, Philipp C., 2018. "Mine, Ours or Yours? Unintended Framing Effects in Dictator Games," Working Paper Series 1205, Research Institute of Industrial Economics.
    5. Christoph Engel, 2011. "Dictator games: a meta study," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 14(4), pages 583-610, November.
    6. Doucouliagos, Hristos & Paldam, Martin & Stanley, T.D., 2018. "Skating on thin evidence: Implications for public policy," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 16-25.
    7. David Card & Stefano DellaVigna, 2013. "Nine Facts about Top Journals in Economics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(1), pages 144-161, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Martin Paldam, 2018. "The strategies of economic research - An empirical study," Economics Working Papers 2018-04, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    2. Paldam Martin, 2021. "Methods Used in Economic Research: An Empirical Study of Trends and Levels," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 15(1), pages 28-42, January.
    3. Syed Hasan & Robert Breunig, 2021. "Article length and citation outcomes," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(9), pages 7583-7608, September.
    4. Alexander Frankel & Maximilian Kasy, 2022. "Which Findings Should Be Published?," American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 1-38, February.
    5. Ali Sina Önder & Sascha Schweitzer & Hakan Yilmazkuday, 2021. "Field Distance and Quality in Economists’ Collaborations," Working Papers in Economics & Finance 2021-04, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth Business School, Economics and Finance Subject Group.
    6. Nicolas Vallois & Dorian Jullien, 2017. "Replication in experimental economics: A historical and quantitative approach focused on public good game experiments," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-01651080, HAL.
    7. Peter Andre & Armin Falk, 2021. "What’s Worth Knowing? Economists’ Opinions about Economics," ECONtribute Discussion Papers Series 102, University of Bonn and University of Cologne, Germany.
    8. Valérie Orozco & Christophe Bontemps & Élise Maigné & Virginie Piguet & Annie Hofstetter & Anne Marie Lacroix & Fabrice Levert & Jean-Marc Rousselle, 2017. "How to make a pie? Reproducible Research for Empirical Economics & Econometrics," Post-Print hal-01939942, HAL.
    9. Matthias Aistleitner & Stephan Puehringer, 2020. "Exploring the trade (policy) narratives in economic elite discourse," ICAE Working Papers 110, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    10. Önder, Ali Sina & Schweitzer, Sascha & Yilmazkuday, Hakan, 2021. "Specialization, field distance, and quality in economists’ collaborations," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    11. Jakob Kapeller & Stephan Puehringer & Christian Grimm, 2022. "Paradigms and policies: the state of economics in the German-speaking countries," Review of International Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(4), pages 1183-1210, July.
    12. João R. Faria & Rajeev K. Goel & Neela D. Manage, 2024. "The path of economics research production: Insights into the seesaw between theory and empirics," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 83(4), pages 753-772, September.
    13. Lutz Bornmann & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2019. "Normalisation of citation impact in economics," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 120(2), pages 841-884, August.
    14. Corbet, Shaen & Dowling, Michael & Gao, Xiangyun & Huang, Shupei & Lucey, Brian & Vigne, Samuel A., 2019. "An analysis of the intellectual structure of research on the financial economics of precious metals," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-1.
    15. Spiegel, Yossi & Toivanen, Otto, 2022. "From conference submission to publication and citations: Evidence from the EARIE conference," International Journal of Industrial Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(C).
    16. Bajzik, Josef & Havranek, Tomas & Irsova, Zuzana & Schwarz, Jiri, 2020. "Estimating the Armington elasticity: The importance of study design and publication bias," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 127(C).
    17. Paldam, Martin, 2018. "A model of the representative economist, as researcher and policy advisor," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 5-15.
    18. Ankel-Peters, Jörg & Fiala, Nathan & Neubauer, Florian, 2023. "Do economists replicate?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 212(C), pages 219-232.
    19. Abel Brodeur & Nikolai Cook & Anthony Heyes, 2020. "Methods Matter: p-Hacking and Publication Bias in Causal Analysis in Economics," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(11), pages 3634-3660, November.
    20. Mueller-Langer, Frank & Fecher, Benedikt & Harhoff, Dietmar & Wagner, Gert G., 2019. "Replication studies in economics—How many and which papers are chosen for replication, and why?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(1), pages 62-83.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Research methods; Survey of journals;

    JEL classification:

    • A14 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Sociology of Economics
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sol:wpaper:2013/280927. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Benoit Pauwels (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cebulbe.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.