Ranking Economics Papers

According to a recent working paper written by E. Han Kim, Adair Morse, and Luigi Zingales, the most cited article is Halbert White’s paper on robust standard errors. An elite group of 11 economists authored or co-authored at least three papers. Robert Barro, Eugene Fama, and Joseph Stiglitz have six each. Michael Jensen follows with five; Robert Lucas and David Kreps with four; and Robert Engle, Lars Hansen, Robert Merton, Edward Prescott, and Stephen Ross have three each.

ABSTRACT

We compile the list of articles published in major refereed economics journals during the last 35 years that have received more than 500 citations. We document major shifts in the mode of contribution and in the importance of different sub-fields: Theory loses out to empirical work, and micro and macro give way to growth and development in the 1990s. While we do not witness any decline in the primacy of production in the United States over the period, the concentration of institutions within the U.S. hosting and training authors of the highly-cited articles has declined substantially.