What has Economics ever done for us? (since 1970)

An interesting paper all the more interesting for empirical economists. I suspect this trend will continue as economics evolves. At the same time as the quality of the data and computing power is increasing, the world is running out of original questions for theorists to theorise on (and the math is getting increasingly complex).

Most of the most highly cited papers are by Econometricans. e.g. White, Grnager, Heckman, Dickey and Fuller, Engle, Hausman (you should get the idea by now).

The top Environmental Economics related paper (and pretty much the only one):

73. Box, G. E. P., Tiao, G. C. (1975) Intervention Analysis with Applications to
Economic and Environmental Problems Journal of the American Statistical Association 70(349), 70-79 726 citations.


"What Has Mattered to Economics Since 1970"
NBER Working Paper No. W12526
Author: E. HAN KIM
University of Michigan - Stephen M. Ross School of Business
Email: ehkim@umich.edu
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=30762

Co-Author: ADAIR MORSE
University of Michigan - Stephen M. Ross School of Business
Email: adairm@umich.edu
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=107456

Contact: LUIGI ZINGALES
University of Chicago, Harvard University, National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), European Corporate
Governance Institute (ECGI)
Email: luigi.zingales@gsb.uchicago.edu
Auth-Page: http://ssrn.com/author=2092

Full Text: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=931371

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.