Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/238068 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2021
Citation: 
[Journal:] Economics: The Open-Access, Open-Assessment Journal [ISSN:] 1864-6042 [Volume:] 15 [Issue:] 1 [Publisher:] De Gruyter [Place:] Berlin [Year:] 2021 [Pages:] 28-42
Publisher: 
De Gruyter, Berlin
Abstract: 
The methods 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 papers are classified into three main groups by method: theory, experiments, and empirics. The theory and empirics groups are almost equally large. Most empiric papers use the classical method, which derives an operational model from theory and runs regressions. The number of papers published increases by 3.3% p.a. Two trends are highly significant: The fraction of theoretical papers has fallen by 26 pp (percentage points), while the fraction of papers using the classical method has increased by 15 pp. Economic theory predicts that such papers exaggerate, and the papers that have been analyzed by meta-analysis confirm the prediction. It is discussed if other methods have smaller problems.
Subjects: 
research methods
survey of journals
JEL: 
A14
B41
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Creative Commons License: 
cc-by Logo
Document Type: 
Article

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