In preparation for a PhD class, I decided to look up what the most influential papers in economics are as of late 2023.¹ I wanted to learn what ideas and papers have been most influential. (This is not necessarily the same as “the best” though I do not know how one would objectively measure this.).

Most Influential Economics Papers

The Web of Science makes it easy to pull down the most-cited economics papers. Just use a simple query “wc=(economics)”, query link. In Oct 2024, this resulted in .

I arbitrarily grouped finance and econometrics papers differently to the left. (Actually, I even misclassified some finance and econometrics papers, too. Don’t take this exercise too seriously.) Having said this, I tried to tread lightly when it came to eliminating papers from the WoS list. (it still contains a regional studies paper as well as an ecological economics paper, and even a “futurist” one.) Papers with dead authors have a dagger next to them.

Papers in the “Other” Category

	abbrev	authors	year	title	journal
24	LLSV98	la porta, r; lopez-de-silanes,	1998	law and finance	journal of political economy
48	SV97	shleifer, a; vishny, rw	1997	a survey of corporate governance	journal of finance
55	M03	melitz, mj	2003	the impact of trade on intra-industry reallocation	econometrica
57	FS99	fehr, e; schmidt, km	1999	a theory of fairness, competition, and cooperation	quarterly journal of economics
60	MRW92	mankiw, ng; romer, d; weil, dn	1992	a contribution to the empirics of economic-growth	quarterly journal of economics
65	LLS99	la porta, r; lopez-de-silanes,	1999	corporate ownership around the world	journal of finance
66	BBD16	baker, sr; bloom, n; davis, sj	2016	measuring economic policy uncertainty	quarterly journal of economics
76	B91	barro, rj	1991	economic-growth in a cross-section of countries	quarterly journal of economics
77	GK95	grossman, gm; krueger, ab	1995	economic-growth and the environment	quarterly journal of economics
81	ADEH99	artzner, p; delbaen, f; eber,	1999	coherent measures of risk	mathematical finance
84	LLSV97	laporta, r; lopezdesilanes, f;	1997	legal determinants of external finance	journal of finance
105	CL89	cohen, wm; levinthal, da	1989	innovation and learning: the two faces of r & d	economic journal
112	S08	stern, n	2008	the economics of climate change	american economic review
116	AH92	aghion, p; howitt, p	1992	a model of growth through creative destruction	econometrica
120	KK97	knack, s; keefer, p	1997	does social capital have an economic payoff? a cro	quarterly journal of economics
121	M95	mauro, p	1995	corruption and growth	quarterly journal of economics
124	GHS05	gereffi, g; humphrey, j; sturg	2005	the governance of global value chains	review of international political economy
127	B05	boschma, ra	2005	proximity and innovation: a critical assessment	regional studies
128	SV86	shleifer, a; vishny, rw	1986	large shareholders and corporate-control	journal of political economy
131	HJ99	hall, re; jones, ci	1999	why do some countries produce so much more output	quarterly journal of economics
139	KS85	katz, ml; shapiro, c	1985	network externalities, competition, and compatibil	american economic review
142	B73	blinder, as	1973	wage discrimination - reduced form and structural	journal of human resources
146	A89	arthur, wb	1989	competing technologies, increasing returns, and lo	economic journal
147	AV03	anderson, je; van wincoop, e	2003	gravity with gravitas: a solution to the border pu	american economic review
152	PZM05	pimentel, d; zuniga, r; morris	2005	update on the environmental and economic costs ass	ecological economics
154	FLO02	frederick, s; loewenstein, g;	2002	time discounting and time preference: a critical r	journal of economic literature
155	C83	calvo, ga	1983	staggered prices in a utility-maximizing framework	journal of monetary economics
156	G72	grossman, m	1972	concept of health capital and demand for health	journal of political economy
166	BHW92	bikhchandani, s; hirshleifer,	1992	a theory of fads, fashion, custom, and cultural-ch	journal of political economy
168	ST06	silva, jmcs; tenreyro, s	2006	the log of gravity	review of economics and statistics
170	HL02	holt, ca; laury, sk	2002	risk aversion and incentive effects	american economic review
171	LLSV99	la porta, r; lopez-de-silanes,	1999	the quality of government	journal of law economics & organization
179	LP03	levinsohn, j; petrin, a	2003	estimating production functions using inputs to co	review of economic studies
181	HK06	hyndman, rj; koehler, ab	2006	another look at measures of forecast accuracy	international journal of forecasting
182	MV77	meeusen, w; vandenbroeck, j	1977	efficiency estimation from cobb-douglas production	international economic review
183	N70	nelson, p	1970	information and consumer behavior	journal of political economy
185	BS92	barro, rj; salaimartin, x	1992	convergence	journal of political economy
186	A90	andreoni, j	1990	impure altruism and donations to public-goods - a	economic journal
191	BDM95	berg, j; dickhaut, j; mccabe,	1995	trust, reciprocity, and social-history	games and economic behavior
195	LLSV00	la porta, r; lopez-de-silanes,	2000	investor protection and corporate governance	journal of financial economics
198	CG09	croson, r; gneezy, u	2009	gender differences in preferences	journal of economic literature
204	OP96	olley, gs; pakes, a	1996	the dynamics of productivity in the telecommunicat	econometrica
206	CH04	collier, p; hoeffler, a	2004	greed and grievance in civil war	oxford economic papers-new series
207	F05	frederick, s	2005	cognitive reflection and decision making	journal of economic perspectives
211	R82	rubinstein, a	1982	perfect equilibrium in a bargaining model	econometrica
217	DWB02	de groot, rs; wilson, ma; boum	2002	a typology for the classification, description and	ecological economics
219	AF09	adams, rb; ferreira, d	2009	women in the boardroom and their impact on governa	journal of financial economics
220	L97	laibson, d	1997	golden eggs and hyperbolic discounting	quarterly journal of economics
224	B09	bloom, n	2009	the impact of uncertainty shocks	econometrica
227	T70	tullock, g	1970	exit, voice and loyalty - responses to decline in	journal of finance
230	AR03	anderson, rc; reeb, dm	2003	founding-family ownership and firm performance: ev	journal of finance
232	DSSW90	delong, jb; shleifer, a; summe	1990	noise trader risk in financial-markets	journal of political economy
235	L97	levine, r	1997	financial development and economic growth: views a	journal of economic literature
236	FGNZ94	fare, r; grosskopf, s; norris,	1994	productivity growth, technical progress, and effic	american economic review
240	BO00	bolton, ge; ockenfels, a	2000	erc: a theory of equity, reciprocity, and competit	american economic review
242	DHG03	dimasi, ja; hansen, rw; grabow	2003	the price of innovation: new estimates of drug dev	journal of health economics
245	KM97	kiyotaki, n; moore, j	1997	credit cycles	journal of political economy
246	GKSS92	glaeser, el; kallal, hd; schei	1992	growth in cities	journal of political economy
250	GSS82	guth, w; schmittberger, r; sch	1982	an experimental-analysis of ultimatum bargaining	journal of economic behavior & organization
253	R93	rabin, m	1993	incorporating fairness into game-theory and econom	american economic review
254	ALM03	autor, dh; levy, f; murnane, r	2003	the skill content of recent technological change:	quarterly journal of economics
259	K74	krueger, ao	1974	political economy of rent-seeking society	american economic review
260	BM04	bertrand, m; mullainathan, s	2004	are emily and greg more employable than lakisha an	american economic review
261	CEE05	christiano, lj; eichenbaum, m;	2005	nominal rigidities and the dynamic effects of a sh	journal of political economy
262	KL93	king, rg; levine, r	1993	finance and growth - schumpeter might be right	quarterly journal of economics
263	AG17	allcott, h; gentzkow, m	2017	social media and fake news in the 2016 election	journal of economic perspectives
265	SV93	shleifer, a; vishny, rw	1993	corruption	quarterly journal of economics
267	FR93	funtowicz, so; ravetz, jr	1993	science for the post-normal age	futures
270	P76	peltzman, s	1976	toward a more general theory of regulation	journal of law & economics
275	LR92	levine, r; renelt, d	1992	a sensitivity analysis of cross-country growth reg	american economic review
276	R28	ramsey, fp	1928	a mathematical theory of saving	economic journal
282	B90	barro, rj	1990	government spending in a simple-model of endogenou	journal of political economy
283	G54	gordon, hs	1954	the economic theory of a common-property resource:	journal of political economy
285	BDL98	borensztein, e; de gregorio, j	1998	how does foreign direct investment affect economic	journal of international economics
286	EL97	easterly, w; levine, r	1997	africa’s growth tragedy: policies and ethnic divis	quarterly journal of economics
288	RU02	rockafellar, rt; uryasev, s	2002	conditional value-at-risk for general loss distrib	journal of banking & finance
289	FR99	frankel, ja; romer, d	1999	does trade cause growth?	american economic review
294	MR81	meltzer, ah; richard, sf	1981	a rational theory of the size of government	journal of political economy
295	B74	barro, rj	1974	are government bonds net wealth	journal of political economy
296	FG00	fehr, e; gächter, s	2000	cooperation and punishment in public goods experim	american economic review
297	BRD02	brazier, j; roberts, j; deveri	2002	the estimation of a preference-based measure of he	journal of health economics
299	GS89	gilboa, i; schmeidler, d	1989	maxmin expected utility with non-unique prior	journal of mathematical economics

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Future Nobel Prize Winners?

1. Growth and Institutions: Andrei Shleifer et al

Disclaimer: I know Andrei. I am friendly but not friends. I have never been in his circle. He is an amazing scholar.

(The papers Andrei has written with Rob are generally better than the papers he has written without him.) Andrei has further published very influential papers in other areas, too. He has always been academic royalty — in this case, more than deserved. In a sense, he has helped found the modern royal house of Harvard.

2. Panel Econometrics: Stephen Bond (plus)

Disclaimer: I don’t know what I am talking about here. The area is too far from my expertise. I have never met Steve.

Econometrics is difficult for me to judge. Most econometric papers on the list of the top 200 economics papers are variations on unit roots in time-series. Arguably, panel methods have not received as much attention. Bond has two papers on the top-20 list: #6 (Arellano-Bond) and #11 (Blundell-Bond). (I don’t know the relative contributions of Arellano and Blundell to these papers. These two authors may be appropriately included, too.)

4. Others

• Fairness: Fehr and Schmidt (1999) is very impressive especially because the paper was not from a royal court but a province.

• Trade: Melitz (2003) is a clear shoe-in. It is also relatively new. The paper’s abstract states that it “adapts Hopenhayn’s (1992a) dynamic industry model to monopolistic competition in a general equilibrium setting.” Maybe this means that Hopenhayn should be a part of this.

• Economic Growth: There are a large number of papers related to “economic growth” on the top 200 list. They include Mankiew-Romer-Weil (1992); Barro (1991), Grossman-Krueger (1995), Aghion-Howitt (1992), Mauro (1995), Hall-Jones (1999), Rajan-Zingales (1998), and others.

• Market Microstructure: Pete Kyle, perhaps the smartest guy on the list (and that means a lot!!), has one huge hit conceptual theory paper here, ranked about #100. Of all the non-growth papers in finance, this seems like the most insightful and influential one.

• Uncertainty: Baker-Bloom-Davis reinvigorated the field by offering novel empirical measures of uncertainty.

Journals With The Highest Frequency of High Impact Papers

Journals	Freq
econometrica	42
journal of political economy	34
american economic review	30
quarterly journal of economics	27
journal of finance	23
journal of financial economics	19
journal of econometrics	14

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The remainder was (99%) written a few years ago.

Historical Association

Citation influence is a nice objectively measurable criterion, but it isn’t everything. For example, in my mind, the Nordhaus Nobel Prize is difficult to beat, yet Nordhaus’ highest-impact paper is only about about #400. Similarly, Piketty should probably eventualy win a Nobel Prize, even though his book on inequality is nowhere close to the top here. (Piketty-Saez is ranked around #500.)

Some past Nobel prizes seem to have been given more for “life-time contribution” than for “great ideas.” Others seem to have been given for perceived importance beyond cites (such as Nordhaus). Finally, yet others (especially in the distant past, such as Richard Stone) seem difficult to explain to me.

In 2021, I also spent some time looking at the top-200 papers, not just the plotted top-50 papers. As in the graph based on the top 50 or so papers, the top 200 paper could similarly be grouped into three categories:

1. they are econometrics/methods;
2. the authors have a Nobel prize, or
3. the authors are not in the suitable age category (too young or too dead).

Past Associations of Influence with Nobel Prizes

Not all Nobel Prize winners have had highly influential papers on the top 200 list. In the following, I add the highest cited paper for each Nobel Prize winner in 2022 or so.

Have Top-200 Paper

Have No Top-200 Paper

- Yes: acemoglu (upd #69), akerlof (#16), angrist (#31), arrow (#89), banerjee (#182), becker (#37), coase (#9), diamond (#136), dybvig (#136), engle (#4), fama (#11), hansen (#40), hart (#93), hayek (#63), heckman (#3), holmstrom (#103), johnson (upd #69), kahneman (#1), krugman (#71), kuznets (#76), kydland (#151), lucas (#18), markowitz (#7), merton (#67), miller (#47), modigliani (#47), nash (#84), north (#109), prescott (#151), robinson (upd #69), romer (#23), samuelson (#138), scholes (#6), schultz (#163), sharpe (#33), simon (#38), sims (#64), solow (#25), spence (#46), stigler (#70), stiglitz (#62), thaler (#174), tobin (#105), vickrey (#101), williamson (#85).

- No: bernanke (#307), deaton (#275), debreu (#280), diamond (peter, #405), fogel (>#1000), friedman (#217), frisch (>#1000), goldin(upd >#1000)., haavelmo (>#1000), harsanyi (#517), hicks (>#1000), hurwicz (>#1000), imbens (#294), kantorovich (>#1000), klein (>#1000), koopmans (#977), kremer, (>#1000), leontief (#623), lewis (>#1000), maskin (#710), mcfadden (#272), meade (>#1000), milgrom (#200), mortensen (#576), mundell (#304), myerson (#779), myrdal (>#1000), nordhaus (#415), ohlin (>#1000), ostrom (#356), phelps (#474), pissarides (#576), roth (#957), sargent (>#1000), schelling (>#1000), selten (>#1000), sen (#986), shapley (#231), smith (>#1000), stone (>#1000), tinbergen (>#1000), tirole (#382), wilson (#496).

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More Observations

Among the top 200 papers:

• The single-most cited work in economics is Kahneman and Tversky’s prospect theory.

• The most common authors were Shleifer (8), Fama and Vishny (7), Merton and Jensen (5).

• The youngest entry on the list is the Wooldrige textbook (2010, #35). With the exception of Reinhart-Rogoff (“This time is different”, 2009, #156), all young papers are econometric methods — but, of course, RR is based on a spreadsheet error. the Graham-Harvey-Rajgopal (2005, #151) survey of corporate officers is the youngest other paper (#192).

• The oldest entry on the list is Hotelling’s competition paper (1929, #79). The next oldest paper is Coase (1937, #10). Talking about staying power!!! These papers have truly stood the test of time.

• Most of the papers are by American or British authors.

• Almost exactly one-third of the papers on the top-200 list are on econometric methods, such as panel and unit-root methods. The number of highly-cited papers is greatly overrepresentative relative to the number of econometricians in economics. (They provide useful tools to all of us, in the best sense!) This is also my bad reason for breaking them out.

• About one-third of the researchers in the broader economics profession are in finance, based on membership in the AEA vs. AFA. This is approximately propotionally reflected in the appearance of finance papers on this list. About one-sixth are asset-pricing papers, just under one-sixth are corporate finance papers.

• About one-sixth of the paper are in macro- and growth economics.

• About one-quarter of the papers are (primarily) economic theory. This area distribution seems reflective of the past, more so than the present.

• Marc Melitz is young but should absolutely eventually win for the Melitz model of trade (already ranked #53 in 2023!).

• Carhart’s 1997 paper is listed as about #36. However, it is not a good candidate for a Nobel prize, the same way that lots of econometrics papers are not. The paper provides a “specification” control inclusion for the momentum factor.

• Only 3 of the top 200 papers include a female author: Bertrand-Duflo-Mullainathan (#75^2). Reinhart-Rogoff (#159). Hart-Laury (#171).

  • It seems less plausible that women are so few because there was an active coordinated campaign to discriminate against women. Cites are not decided by a small clique (e.g., of men as editors or referees or department chairs). Women are of course as good as economists as men. It seems more likely to me that the dearth of women on this list reflects the historically smaller number of women in economics. Feel free to disagree.

 

Some critiques about the robustness of findings have been published in

• Reinhart-Rogoff (see Herndon-Ash-Pollin 2014; but read also the response).

• For some of the LLSV papers (see Holderness 2016a and Holderness 2016b; no response); and

Final Notes

• Armen Alchian, Harold Demsetz and Stephen Ross absolutely should have won Nobel prizes when they were alive. How could Richard Stone have won but not Harold Demsetz?

• Bollerslev [ranked paper #15] should have snuck in with the ARCH Nobel prizes in the past, but it’s probably too late now.

• I also like Newey-West (#18), but it seems conceptually too derivative to White (#4) even though NW is so widely used. On the other hand, it took 7 years to publish NW after White. Perhaps NW just seems obvious in retrospect.

• There is a whole universe of papers in ecology, evolution, and economics (e.g., Eric Charnov or Robert Costanza). I am not qualified to judge the relative contributions here, but this literature seems fascinating.

Feel free to drop me a note if I missed something important.

Stupid Dinner Table Trivia

What are the most over- and under-represented beginning letters of the last name of recipients?

Last Name	US Pop	Nobel
A	3.75%	3
B	8.96%	3
C	6.38%	1
D	5.65%	5
E	2.03%	1
F	3.63%	4
G	5.34%	1
H	5.59%	9
I	0.76%	1
J	1.36%	0
K	5.70%	8
L	5.24%	3
M	8.28%	12
N	2.13%	3
O	1.63%	2
P	5.27%	3
Q	0.26%	0
R	4.80%	2
S	10.93%	16
T	3.88%	4
U	0.47%	0
V	2.55%	1
W	3.46%	2
X	0.02%	0
Y	0.65%	0
Z	1.29%	0

Overrepresented?: S, M, H. F, A.

Underrepresented?: J, Q, U, X, Y, Z. (Well, the Chinese have only more recently entered the profession in large numbers… ;-) )

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Footnotes