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• 28 May 2024
• In Practice

Job Search Advice for a Tough Market: Think Broadly and Stay Flexible

Some employers have pared staff and reduced hiring amid mixed economic signals. What does it mean for job seekers? Paul Gompers, Letian Zhang, and David Fubini offer advice for overcoming search challenges to score that all-important offer.

• 21 May 2024
• Research & Ideas

What the Rise of Far-Right Politics Says About the Economy in an Election Year

With voters taking to the polls in dozens of countries this year, could election outcomes lean conservative? Paula Rettl says a lack of social mobility and a sense of economic insecurity are some of the factors fueling far-right movements around the world.

• 11 Apr 2024

Why Progress on Immigration Might Soften Labor Pains

Long-term labor shortages continue to stoke debates about immigration policy in the United States. We asked Harvard Business School faculty members to discuss what's at stake for companies facing talent needs, and the potential scenarios on the horizon.

• 01 Apr 2024

Navigating the Mood of Customers Weary of Price Hikes

Price increases might be tempering after historic surges, but companies continue to wrestle with pinched consumers. Alexander MacKay, Chiara Farronato, and Emily Williams make sense of the economic whiplash of inflation and offer insights for business leaders trying to find equilibrium.

• 29 Jan 2024

Do Disasters Rally Support for Climate Action? It's Complicated.

Reactions to devastating wildfires in the Amazon show the contrasting realities for people living in areas vulnerable to climate change. Research by Paula Rettl illustrates the political ramifications that arise as people weigh the economic tradeoffs of natural disasters.

• 10 Jan 2024

Technology and COVID Upended Tipping Norms. Will Consumers Keep Paying?

When COVID pushed service-based businesses to the brink, tipping became a way for customers to show their appreciation. Now that the pandemic is over, new technologies have enabled companies to maintain and expand the use of digital payment nudges, says Jill Avery.

• 17 Aug 2023

‘Not a Bunch of Weirdos’: Why Mainstream Investors Buy Crypto

Bitcoin might seem like the preferred tender of conspiracy theorists and criminals, but everyday investors are increasingly embracing crypto. A study of 59 million consumers by Marco Di Maggio and colleagues paints a shockingly ordinary picture of today's cryptocurrency buyer. What do they stand to gain?

• 15 Aug 2023

Why Giving to Others Makes Us Happy

Giving to others is also good for the giver. A research paper by Ashley Whillans and colleagues identifies three circumstances in which spending money on other people can boost happiness.

• 13 Mar 2023

What Would It Take to Unlock Microfinance's Full Potential?

Microfinance has been seen as a vehicle for economic mobility in developing countries, but the results have been mixed. Research by Natalia Rigol and Ben Roth probes how different lending approaches might serve entrepreneurs better.

• 23 Jan 2023

After High-Profile Failures, Can Investors Still Trust Credit Ratings?

Rating agencies, such as Standard & Poor’s and Moody's, have been criticized for not warning investors of risks that led to major financial catastrophes. But an analysis of thousands of ratings by Anywhere Sikochi and colleagues suggests that agencies have learned from past mistakes.

• 29 Nov 2022

How Much More Would Holiday Shoppers Pay to Wear Something Rare?

Economic worries will make pricing strategy even more critical this holiday season. Research by Chiara Farronato reveals the value that hip consumers see in hard-to-find products. Are companies simply making too many goods?

• 21 Nov 2022

Buy Now, Pay Later: How Retail's Hot Feature Hurts Low-Income Shoppers

More consumers may opt to "buy now, pay later" this holiday season, but what happens if they can't make that last payment? Research by Marco Di Maggio and Emily Williams highlights the risks of these financing services, especially for lower-income shoppers.

• 01 Sep 2022
• What Do You Think?

Is It Time to Consider Lifting Tariffs on Chinese Imports?

Many of the tariffs levied by the Trump administration on Chinese goods remain in place. James Heskett weighs whether the US should prioritize renegotiating trade agreements with China, and what it would take to move on from the trade war. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 05 Jul 2022

Have We Seen the Peak of Just-in-Time Inventory Management?

Toyota and other companies have harnessed just-in-time inventory management to cut logistics costs and boost service. That is, until COVID-19 roiled global supply chains. Will we ever get back to the days of tighter inventory control? asks James Heskett. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 09 Mar 2022

War in Ukraine: Soaring Gas Prices and the Return of Stagflation?

With nothing left to lose, Russia's invasion of Ukraine will likely intensify, roiling energy markets further and raising questions about the future of globalization, says Rawi Abdelal. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 10 Feb 2022

Why Are Prices So High Right Now—and Will They Ever Return to Normal?

And when will sold-out products return to store shelves? The answers aren't so straightforward. Research by Alberto Cavallo probes the complex interplay of product shortages, prices, and inflation. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 11 Jan 2022
• Cold Call Podcast

Can Entrepreneurs and Governments Team Up to Solve Big Problems?

In 2017, Shield AI’s quadcopter, with no pilot and no flight plan, could clear a building and outpace human warfighters by almost five minutes. It was evidence that autonomous robots could help protect civilian and service member lives. But was it also evidence that Shield AI—a startup barely two years past founding—could ask their newest potential customer, the US government, for a large contract for a system of coordinated, exploring robots? Or would it scare them away? Harvard Business School professor Mitch Weiss and Brandon Tseng, Shield AI’s CGO and co-founder, discuss these and other challenges entrepreneurs face when working with the public sector, and how investing in new ideas can enable entrepreneurs and governments to join forces and solve big problems in the case, “Shield AI.” Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 06 May 2021

How Four Women Made Miami More Equitable for Startups

A case study by Rosabeth Moss Kanter examines what it takes to break gender barriers and build thriving businesses in an emerging startup hub. Open for comment; 0 Comments.

• 20 Apr 2021
• Working Paper Summaries

The Emergence of Mafia-like Business Systems in China

This study sheds light on the political pathology of fraudulent, illegal, and corrupt business practices. Features of the Chinese system—including regulatory gaps, a lack of formal means of property protection, and pervasive uncertainty—seem to facilitate the rise of mafia systems.

• 02 Feb 2021

Nonprofits in Good Times and Bad Times

Tax returns from millions of US nonprofits reveal that charities do not expand during bad times, when need is the greatest. Although they are able to smooth the swings of their activities more than for-profit organizations, nonprofits exhibit substantial sensitivity to economic cycles.

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Methods Used in Economic Research: An Empirical Study of Trends and Levels

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.

1 Introduction

This paper studies the pattern in the research methods in economics by a sample of 3,415 regular papers published in the years 1997, 2002, 2007, 2012, and 2017 in 10 journals. The analysis builds on the beliefs that truth exists, but it is difficult to find, and that all the methods listed in the next paragraph have problems as discussed in Sections 2 and 4. Hereby I do not imply that all – or even most – papers have these problems, but we rarely know how serious it is when we read a paper. A key aspect of the problem is that a “perfect” study is very demanding and requires far too much space to report, especially if the paper looks for usable results. Thus, each paper is just one look at an aspect of the problem analyzed. Only when many studies using different methods reach a joint finding, we can trust that it is true.

Section 2 discusses the classification of papers by method into three main categories: (M1) Theory , with three subgroups: (M1.1) economic theory, (M1.2) statistical methods, and (M1.3) surveys. (M2) Experiments , with two subgroups: (M2.1) lab experiments and (M2.2) natural experiments. (M3) Empirics , with three subgroups: (M3.1) descriptive, (M3.2) classical empirics, and (M3.3) newer empirics. More than 90% of the papers are easy to classify, but a stochastic element enters in the classification of the rest. Thus, the study has some – hopefully random – measurement errors.

Section 3 discusses the sample of journals chosen. The choice has been limited by the following main criteria: It should be good journals below the top ten A-journals, i.e., my article covers B-journals, which are the journals where most research economists publish. It should be general interest journals, and the journals should be so different that it is likely that patterns that generalize across these journals apply to more (most?) journals. The Appendix gives some crude counts of researchers, departments, and journals. It assesses that there are about 150 B-level journals, but less than half meet the criteria, so I have selected about 15% of the possible ones. This is the most problematic element in the study. If the reader accepts my choice, the paper tells an interesting story about economic research.

All B-level journals try hard to have a serious refereeing process. If our selection is representative, the 150 journals have increased the annual number of papers published from about 7,500 in 1997 to about 14,000 papers in 2017, giving about 200,000 papers for the period. Thus, the B-level dominates our science. Our sample is about 6% for the years covered, but less than 2% of all papers published in B-journals in the period. However, it is a larger fraction of the papers in general interest journals.

It is impossible for anyone to read more than a small fraction of this flood of papers. Consequently, researchers compete for space in journals and for attention from the readers, as measured in the form of citations. It should be uncontroversial that papers that hold a clear message are easier to publish and get more citations. Thus, an element of sales promotion may enter papers in the form of exaggeration , which is a joint problem for all eight methods. This is in accordance with economic theory that predicts that rational researchers report exaggerated results; see Paldam ( 2016 , 2018 ). For empirical papers, meta-methods exist to summarize the results from many papers, notably papers using regressions. Section 4.4 reports that meta-studies find that exaggeration is common.

The empirical literature surveying the use of research methods is quite small, as I have found two articles only: Hamermesh ( 2013 ) covers 748 articles in 6 years a decade apart studies in three A-journals using a slightly different classification of methods, [1] while my study covers B-journals. Angrist, Azoulay, Ellison, Hill, and Lu ( 2017 ) use a machine-learning classification of 134,000 papers in 80 journals to look at the three main methods. My study subdivide the three categories into eight. The machine-learning algorithm is only sketched, so the paper is difficult to replicate, but it is surely a major effort. A key result in both articles is the strong decrease of theory in economic publications. This finding is confirmed, and it is shown that the corresponding increase in empirical articles is concentrated on the classical method.

I have tried to explain what I have done, so that everything is easy to replicate, in full or for one journal or one year. The coding of each article is available at least for the next five years. I should add that I have been in economic research for half a century. Some of the assessments in the paper will reflect my observations/experience during this period (indicated as my assessments). This especially applies to the judgements expressed in Section 4.

2 The eight categories

Table 1 reports that the annual number of papers in the ten journals has increased 1.9 times, or by 3.3% per year. The Appendix gives the full counts per category, journal, and year. By looking at data over two decades, I study how economic research develops. The increase in the production of papers is caused by two factors: The increase in the number of researchers. The increasing importance of publications for the careers of researchers.

The 3,415 papers

2.1 (M1) Theory: subgroups (M1.1) to (M1.3)

Table 2 lists the groups and main numbers discussed in the rest of the paper. Section 2.1 discusses (M1) theory. Section 2.2 covers (M2) experimental methods, while Section 2.3 looks at (M3) empirical methods using statistical inference from data.

The 3,415 papers – fractions in percent

The change of the fractions from 1997 to 2017 in percentage points

Note: Section 3.4 tests if the pattern observed in Table 3 is statistically significant. The Appendix reports the full data.

2.1.1 (M1.1) Economic theory

Papers are where the main content is the development of a theoretical model. The ideal theory paper presents a (simple) new model that recasts the way we look at something important. Such papers are rare and obtain large numbers of citations. Most theoretical papers present variants of known models and obtain few citations.

In a few papers, the analysis is verbal, but more than 95% rely on mathematics, though the technical level differs. Theory papers may start by a descriptive introduction giving the stylized fact the model explains, but the bulk of the paper is the formal analysis, building a model and deriving proofs of some propositions from the model. It is often demonstrated how the model works by a set of simulations, including a calibration made to look realistic. However, the calibrations differ greatly by the efforts made to reach realism. Often, the simulations are in lieu of an analytical solution or just an illustration suggesting the magnitudes of the results reached.

Theoretical papers suffer from the problem known as T-hacking , [2] where the able author by a careful selection of assumptions can tailor the theory to give the results desired. Thus, the proofs made from the model may represent the ability and preferences of the researcher rather than the properties of the economy.

2.1.2 (M1.2) Statistical method

Papers reporting new estimators and tests are published in a handful of specialized journals in econometrics and mathematical statistics – such journals are not included. In our general interest journals, some papers compare estimators on actual data sets. If the demonstration of a methodological improvement is the main feature of the paper, it belongs to (M1.2), but if the economic interpretation is the main point of the paper, it belongs to (M3.2) or (M3.3). [3]

Some papers, including a special issue of Empirical Economics (vol. 53–1), deal with forecasting models. Such models normally have a weak relation to economic theory. They are sometimes justified precisely because of their eclectic nature. They are classified as either (M1.2) or (M3.1), depending upon the focus. It appears that different methods work better on different data sets, and perhaps a trade-off exists between the user-friendliness of the model and the improvement reached.

2.1.3 (M1.3) Surveys

When the literature in a certain field becomes substantial, it normally presents a motley picture with an amazing variation, especially when different schools exist in the field. Thus, a survey is needed, and our sample contains 68 survey articles. They are of two types, where the second type is still rare:

2.1.3.1 (M1.3.1) Assessed surveys

Here, the author reads the papers and assesses what the most reliable results are. Such assessments require judgement that is often quite difficult to distinguish from priors, even for the author of the survey.

2.1.3.2 (M1.3.2) Meta-studies

They are quantitative surveys of estimates of parameters claimed to be the same. Over the two decades from 1997 to 2017, about 500 meta-studies have been made in economics. Our sample includes five, which is 0.15%. [4] Meta-analysis has two levels: The basic level collects and codes the estimates and studies their distribution. This is a rather objective exercise where results seem to replicate rather well. [5] The second level analyzes the variation between the results. This is less objective. The papers analyzed by meta-studies are empirical studies using method (M3.2), though a few use estimates from (M3.1) and (M3.3).

2.2 (M2) Experimental methods: subgroups (M2.1) and (M2.2)

Experiments are of three distinct types, where the last two are rare, so they are lumped together. They are taking place in real life.

2.2.1 (M2.1) Lab experiments

The sample had 1.9% papers using this method in 1997, and it has expanded to 9.7% in 2017. It is a technique that is much easier to apply to micro- than to macroeconomics, so it has spread unequally in the 10 journals, and many experiments are reported in a couple of special journals that are not included in our sample.

Most of these experiments take place in a laboratory, where the subjects communicate with a computer, giving a controlled, but artificial, environment. [6] A number of subjects are told a (more or less abstract) story and paid to react in either of a number of possible ways. A great deal of ingenuity has gone into the construction of such experiments and in the methods used to analyze the results. Lab experiments do allow studies of behavior that are hard to analyze in any other way, and they frequently show sides of human behavior that are difficult to rationalize by economic theory. It appears that such demonstration is a strong argument for the publication of a study.

However, everything is artificial – even the payment. In some cases, the stories told are so elaborate and abstract that framing must be a substantial risk; [7] see Levitt and List ( 2007 ) for a lucid summary, and Bergh and Wichardt ( 2018 ) for a striking example. In addition, experiments cost money, which limits the number of subjects. It is also worth pointing to the difference between expressive and real behavior. It is typically much cheaper for the subject to “express” nice behavior in a lab than to be nice in the real world.

(M2.2) Event studies are studies of real world experiments. They are of two types:

(M2.2.1) Field experiments analyze cases where some people get a certain treatment and others do not. The “gold standard” for such experiments is double blind random sampling, where everything (but the result!) is preannounced; see Christensen and Miguel ( 2018 ). Experiments with humans require permission from the relevant authorities, and the experiment takes time too. In the process, things may happen that compromise the strict rules of the standard. [8] Controlled experiments are expensive, as they require a team of researchers. Our sample of papers contains no study that fulfills the gold standard requirements, but there are a few less stringent studies of real life experiments.

(M2.2.2) Natural experiments take advantage of a discontinuity in the environment, i.e., the period before and after an (unpredicted) change of a law, an earthquake, etc. Methods have been developed to find the effect of the discontinuity. Often, such studies look like (M3.2) classical studies with many controls that may or may not belong. Thus, the problems discussed under (M3.2) will also apply.

2.3 (M3) Empirical methods: subgroups (M3.1) to (M3.3)

The remaining methods are studies making inference from “real” data, which are data samples where the researcher chooses the sample, but has no control over the data generating process.

(M3.1) Descriptive studies are deductive. The researcher describes the data aiming at finding structures that tell a story, which can be interpreted. The findings may call for a formal test. If one clean test follows from the description, [9] the paper is classified under (M3.1). If a more elaborate regression analysis is used, it is classified as (M3.2). Descriptive studies often contain a great deal of theory.

Some descriptive studies present a new data set developed by the author to analyze a debated issue. In these cases, it is often possible to make a clean test, so to the extent that biases sneak in, they are hidden in the details of the assessments made when the data are compiled.

(M3.2) Classical empirics has three steps: It starts by a theory, which is developed into an operational model. Then it presents the data set, and finally it runs regressions.

The significance levels of the t -ratios on the coefficient estimated assume that the regression is the first meeting of the estimation model and the data. We all know that this is rarely the case; see also point (m1) in Section 4.4. In practice, the classical method is often just a presentation technique. The great virtue of the method is that it can be applied to real problems outside academia. The relevance comes with a price: The method is quite flexible as many choices have to be made, and they often give different results. Preferences and interests, as discussed in Sections 4.3 and 4.4 below, notably as point (m2), may affect these choices.

(M3.3) Newer empirics . Partly as a reaction to the problems of (M3.2), the last 3–4 decades have seen a whole set of newer empirical techniques. [10] They include different types of VARs, Bayesian techniques, causality/co-integration tests, Kalman Filters, hazard functions, etc. I have found 162 (or 4.7%) papers where these techniques are the main ones used. The fraction was highest in 1997. Since then it has varied, but with no trend.

I think that the main reason for the lack of success for the new empirics is that it is quite bulky to report a careful set of co-integration tests or VARs, and they often show results that are far from useful in the sense that they are unclear and difficult to interpret. With some introduction and discussion, there is not much space left in the article. Therefore, we are dealing with a cookbook that makes for rather dull dishes, which are difficult to sell in the market.

Note the contrast between (M3.2) and (M3.3): (M3.2) makes it possible to write papers that are too good, while (M3.3) often makes them too dull. This contributes to explain why (M3.2) is getting (even) more popular and the lack of success of (M3.3), but then, it is arguable that it is more dangerous to act on exaggerated results than on results that are weak.

3 The 10 journals

The 10 journals chosen are: (J1) Can [Canadian Journal of Economics], (J2) Emp [Empirical Economics], (J3) EER [European Economic Review], (J4) EJPE [European Journal of Political Economy], (J5) JEBO [Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization], (J6) Inter [Journal of International Economics], (J7) Macro [Journal of Macroeconomics], (J8) Kyklos, (J9) PuCh [Public Choice], and (J10) SJE [Scandinavian Journal of Economics].

Section 3.1 discusses the choice of journals, while Section 3.2 considers how journals deal with the pressure for publication. Section 3.3 shows the marked difference in publication profile of the journals, and Section 3.4 tests if the trends in methods are significant.

3.1 The selection of journals

They should be general interest journals – methodological journals are excluded. By general interest, I mean that they bring papers where an executive summary may interest policymakers and people in general. (ii) They should be journals in English (the Canadian Journal includes one paper in French), which are open to researchers from all countries, so that the majority of the authors are from outside the country of the journal. [11] (iii) They should be sufficiently different so that it is likely that patterns, which apply to these journals, tell a believable story about economic research. Note that (i) and (iii) require some compromises, as is evident in the choice of (J2), (J6), (J7), and (J8) ( Table 4 ).

The 10 journals covered

Note. Growth is the average annual growth from 1997 to 2017 in the number of papers published.

Methodological journals are excluded, as they are not interesting to outsiders. However, new methods are developed to be used in general interest journals. From studies of citations, we know that useful methodological papers are highly cited. If they remain unused, we presume that it is because they are useless, though, of course, there may be a long lag.

The choice of journals may contain some subjectivity, but I think that they are sufficiently diverse so that patterns that generalize across these journals will also generalize across a broader range of good journals.

The papers included are the regular research articles. Consequently, I exclude short notes to other papers and book reviews, [12] except for a few article-long discussions of controversial books.

3.2 Creating space in journals

As mentioned in the introduction, the annual production of research papers in economics has now reached about 1,000 papers in top journals, and about 14,000 papers in the group of good journals. [13] The production has grown with 3.3% per year, and thus it has doubled the last twenty years. The hard-working researcher will read less than 100 papers a year. I know of no signs that this number is increasing. Thus, the upward trend in publication must be due to the large increase in the importance of publications for the careers of researchers, which has greatly increased the production of papers. There has also been a large increase in the number of researches, but as citations are increasingly skewed toward the top journals (see Heckman & Moktan, 2018 ), it has not increased demand for papers correspondingly. The pressures from the supply side have caused journals to look for ways to create space.

Book reviews have dropped to less than 1/3. Perhaps, it also indicates that economists read fewer books than they used to. Journals have increasingly come to use smaller fonts and larger pages, allowing more words per page. The journals from North-Holland Elsevier have managed to cram almost two old pages into one new one. [14] This makes it easier to publish papers, while they become harder to read.

Many journals have changed their numbering system for the annual issues, making it less transparent how much they publish. Only three – Canadian Economic Journal, Kyklos, and Scandinavian Journal of Economics – have kept the schedule of publishing one volume of four issues per year. It gives about 40 papers per year. Public Choice has a (fairly) consistent system with four volumes of two double issues per year – this gives about 100 papers. The remaining journals have changed their numbering system and increased the number of papers published per year – often dramatically.

Thus, I assess the wave of publications is caused by the increased supply of papers and not to the demand for reading material. Consequently, the study confirms and updates the observation by Temple ( 1918 , p. 242): “… as the world gets older the more people are inclined to write but the less they are inclined to read.”

3.3 How different are the journals?

The appendix reports the counts for each year and journal of the research methods. From these counts, a set of χ 2 -scores is calculated for the three main groups of methods – they are reported in Table 5 . It gives the χ 2 -test comparing the profile of each journal to the one of the other nine journals taken to be the theoretical distribution.

The methodological profile of the journals –  χ 2 -scores for main groups

Note: The χ 2 -scores are calculated relative to all other journals. The sign (+) or (−) indicates if the journal has too many or too few papers relatively in the category. The P -values for the χ 2 (3)-test always reject that the journal has the same methodological profile as the other nine journals.

The test rejects that the distribution is the same as the average for any of the journals. The closest to the average is the EJPE and Public Choice. The two most deviating scores are for the most micro-oriented journal JEBO, which brings many experimental papers, and of course, Empirical Economics, which brings many empirical papers.

3.4 Trends in the use of the methods

Table 3 already gave an impression of the main trends in the methods preferred by economists. I now test if these impressions are statistically significant. The tests have to be tailored to disregard three differences between the journals: their methodological profiles, the number of papers they publish, and the trend in the number. Table 6 reports a set of distribution free tests, which overcome these differences. The tests are done on the shares of each research method for each journal. As the data cover five years, it gives 10 pairs of years to compare. [15] The three trend-scores in the []-brackets count how often the shares go up, down, or stay the same in the 10 cases. This is the count done for a Kendall rank correlation comparing the five shares with a positive trend (such as 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5).

Trend-scores and tests for the eight subgroups of methods across the 10 journals

Note: The three trend-scores in each [ I 1 , I 2 , I 3 ]-bracket are a Kendall-count over all 10 combinations of years. I 1 counts how often the share goes up. I 2 counts when the share goes down, and I 3 counts the number of ties. Most ties occur when there are no observations either year. Thus, I 1 + I 2 + I 3 = 10. The tests are two-sided binominal tests disregarding the zeroes. The test results in bold are significant at the 5% level.

The first set of trend-scores for (M1.1) and (J1) is [1, 9, 0]. It means that 1 of the 10 share-pairs increases, while nine decrease and no ties are found. The two-sided binominal test is 2%, so it is unlikely to happen. Nine of the ten journals in the (M1.1)-column have a majority of falling shares. The important point is that the counts in one column can be added – as is done in the all-row; this gives a powerful trend test that disregards differences between journals and the number of papers published. ( Table A1 )

Four of the trend-tests are significant: The fall in theoretical papers and the rise in classical papers. There is also a rise in the share of stat method and event studies. It is surprising that there is no trend in the number of experimental studies, but see Table A2 (in Appendix).

4 An attempt to interpret the pattern found

The development in the methods pursued by researchers in economics is a reaction to the demand and supply forces on the market for economic papers. As already argued, it seems that a key factor is the increasing production of papers.

The shares add to 100, so the decline of one method means that the others rise. Section 4.1 looks at the biggest change – the reduction in theory papers. Section 4.2 discusses the rise in two new categories. Section 4.3 considers the large increase in the classical method, while Section 4.4 looks at what we know about that method from meta-analysis.

4.1 The decline of theory: economics suffers from theory fatigue [16]

The papers in economic theory have dropped from 59.5 to 33.6% – this is the largest change for any of the eight subgroups. [17] It is highly significant in the trend test. I attribute this drop to theory fatigue.

As mentioned in Section 2.1, the ideal theory paper presents a (simple) new model that recasts the way we look at something important. However, most theory papers are less exciting: They start from the standard model and argue that a well-known conclusion reached from the model hinges upon a debatable assumption – if it changes, so does the conclusion. Such papers are useful. From a literature on one main model, the profession learns its strengths and weaknesses. It appears that no generally accepted method exists to summarize this knowledge in a systematic way, though many thoughtful summaries have appeared.

I think that there is a deeper problem explaining theory fatigue. It is that many theoretical papers are quite unconvincing. Granted that the calculations are done right, believability hinges on the realism of the assumptions at the start and of the results presented at the end. In order for a model to convince, it should (at least) demonstrate the realism of either the assumptions or the outcome. [18] If both ends appear to hang in the air, it becomes a game giving little new knowledge about the world, however skillfully played.

The theory fatigue has caused a demand for simulations demonstrating that the models can mimic something in the world. Kydland and Prescott pioneered calibration methods (see their 1991 ). Calibrations may be carefully done, but it often appears like a numerical solution of a model that is too complex to allow an analytical solution.

4.2 Two examples of waves: one that is still rising and another that is fizzling out

When a new method of gaining insights in the economy first appears, it is surrounded by doubts, but it also promises a high marginal productivity of knowledge. Gradually the doubts subside, and many researchers enter the field. After some time this will cause the marginal productivity of the method to fall, and it becomes less interesting. The eight methods include two newer ones: Lab experiments and newer stats. [19]

It is not surprising that papers with lab experiments are increasing, though it did take a long time: The seminal paper presenting the technique was Smith ( 1962 ), but only a handful of papers are from the 1960s. Charles Plott organized the first experimental lab 10 years later – this created a new standard for experiments, but required an investment in a lab and some staff. Labs became more common in the 1990s as PCs got cheaper and software was developed to handle experiments, but only 1.9% of the papers in the 10 journals reported lab experiments in 1997. This has now increased to 9.7%, so the wave is still rising. The trend in experiments is concentrated in a few journals, so the trend test in Table 6 is insignificant, but it is significant in the Appendix Table A2 , where it is done on the sum of articles irrespective of the journal.

In addition to the rising share of lab experiment papers in some journals, the journal Experimental Economics was started in 1998, where it published 281 pages in three issues. In 2017, it had reached 1,006 pages in four issues, [20] which is an annual increase of 6.5%.

Compared with the success of experimental economics, the motley category of newer empirics has had a more modest success, as the fraction of papers in the 5 years are 5.8, 5.2, 3.5, 5.4, and 4.2, which has no trend. Newer stats also require investment, but mainly in human capital. [21] Some of the papers using the classical methodology contain a table with Dickey-Fuller tests or some eigenvalues of the data matrix, but they are normally peripheral to the analysis. A couple of papers use Kalman filters, and a dozen papers use Bayesian VARs. However, it is clear that the newer empirics have made little headway into our sample of general interest journals.

4.3 The steady rise of the classical method: flexibility rewarded

The typical classical paper provides estimates of a key effect that decision-makers outside academia want to know. This makes the paper policy relevant right from the start, and in many cases, it is possible to write a one page executive summary to the said decision-makers.

The three-step convention (see Section 2.3) is often followed rather loosely. The estimation model is nearly always much simpler than the theory. Thus, while the model can be derived from a theory, the reverse does not apply. Sometimes, the model seems to follow straight from common sense, and if the link from the theory to the model is thin, it begs the question: Is the theory really necessary? In such cases, it is hard to be convinced that the tests “confirm” the theory, but then, of course, tests only say that the data do not reject the theory.

The classical method is often only a presentation devise. Think of a researcher who has reached a nice publishable result through a long and tortuous path, including some failed attempts to find such results. It is not possible to describe that path within the severely limited space of an article. In addition, such a presentation would be rather dull to read, and none of us likes to talk about wasted efforts that in hindsight seem a bit silly. Here, the classical method becomes a convenient presentation device.

The biggest source of variation in the results is the choice of control/modifier variables. All datasets presumably contain some general and some special information, where the latter depends on the circumstances prevailing when the data were compiled. The regression should be controlled for these circumstances in order to reach the general result. Such ceteris paribus controls are not part of the theory, so many possible controls may be added. The ones chosen for publication often appear to be the ones delivering the “right” results by the priors of the researcher. The justification for their inclusion is often thin, and if two-stage regressions are used, the first stage instruments often have an even thinner justification.

Thus, the classical method is rather malleable to the preferences and interests of researchers and sponsors. This means that some papers using the classical technique are not what they pretend, as already pointed out by Leamer ( 1983 ), see also Paldam ( 2018 ) for new references and theory. The fact that data mining is tempting suggests that it is often possible to reach smashing results, making the paper nice to read. This may be precisely why it is cited.

Many papers using the classical method throw in some bits of exotic statistics technique to demonstrate the robustness of the result and the ability of the researcher. This presumably helps to generate credibility.

4.4 Knowledge about classical papers reached from meta-studies

Individual studies using the classical method often look better than they are, and thus they are more uncertain than they appear, but we may think of the value of convergence for large N s (number of observations) as the truth. The exaggeration is largest in the beginning of a new literature, but gradually it becomes smaller. Thus, the classical method does generate truth when the effect searched for has been studied from many sides. The word research does mean that the search has to be repeated! It is highly risky to trust a few papers only.

Meta-analysis has found other results such as: Results in top journals do not stand out. It is necessary to look at many journals, as many papers on the same effect are needed. Little of the large variation between results is due to the choice of estimators.

A similar development should occur also for experimental economics. Experiments fall in families: A large number cover prisoner’s dilemma games, but there are also many studies of dictator games, auction games, etc. Surveys summarizing what we have learned about these games seem highly needed. Assessed summaries of old experiments are common, notably in introductions to papers reporting new ones. It should be possible to extract the knowledge reached by sets of related lab experiments in a quantitative way, by some sort of meta-technique, but this has barely started. The first pioneering meta-studies of lab experiments do find the usual wide variation of results from seemingly closely related experiments. [25] A recent large-scale replicability study by Camerer et al. ( 2018 ) finds that published experiments in the high quality journal Nature and Science exaggerate by a factor two just like regression studies using the classical method.

5 Conclusion

The study presents evidence that over the last 20 years economic research has moved away from theory towards empirical work using the classical method.

From the eighties onward, there has been a steady stream of papers pointing out that the classical method suffers from excess flexibility. It does deliver relevant results, but they tend to be too good. [26] While, increasingly, we know the size of the problems of the classical method, systematic knowledge about the problems of the other methods is weaker. It is possible that the problems are smaller, but we do not know.

Therefore, it is clear that obtaining solid knowledge about the size of an important effect requires a great deal of papers analyzing many aspects of the effect and a careful quantitative survey. It is a well-known principle in the harder sciences that results need repeated independent replication to be truly trustworthy. In economics, this is only accepted in principle.

The classical method of empirical research is gradually winning, and this is a fine development: It does give answers to important policy questions. These answers are highly variable and often exaggerated, but through the efforts of many competing researchers, solid knowledge will gradually emerge.

Home page: http://www.martin.paldam.dk

Acknowledgments

The paper has been presented at the 2018 MAER-Net Colloquium in Melbourne, the Kiel Aarhus workshop in 2018, and at the European Public Choice 2019 Meeting in Jerusalem. I am grateful for all comments, especially from Chris Doucouliagos, Eelke de Jong, and Bob Reed. In addition, I thank the referees for constructive advice.

Conflict of interest: Author states no conflict of interest.

Appendix: Two tables and some assessments of the size of the profession

The text needs some numbers to assess the representativity of the results reached. These numbers just need to be orders of magnitude. I use the standard three-level classification in A, B, and C of researchers, departments, and journals. The connections between the three categories are dynamic and rely on complex sorting mechanisms. In an international setting, it matters that researchers have preferences for countries, notably their own. The relation between the three categories has a stochastic element.

The World of Learning organization reports on 36,000 universities, colleges, and other institutes of tertiary education and research. Many of these institutions are mainly engaged in undergraduate teaching, and some are quite modest. If half of these institutions have a program in economics, with a staff of at least five, the total stock of academic economists is 100,000, of which most are at the C-level.

The A-level of about 500 tenured researchers working at the top ten universities (mainly) publishes in the top 10 journals that bring less than 1,000 papers per year; [27] see Heckman and Moktan (2020). They (mainly) cite each other, but they greatly influence other researchers. [28] The B-level consists of about 15–20,000 researchers who work at 4–500 research universities, with graduate programs and ambitions to publish. They (mainly) publish in the next level of about 150 journals. [29] In addition, there are at least another 1,000 institutions that strive to move up in the hierarchy.

The counts for each of the 10 journals

Counts, shares, and changes for all ten journals for subgroups

Note: The trend-scores are calculated as in Table 6 . Compared to the results in Table 6 , the results are similar, but the power is less than before. However, note that the results in Column (M2.1) dealing with experiments are stronger in Table A2 . This has to do with the way missing observations are treated in the test.

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From economic wealth to well-being: exploring the importance of happiness economy for sustainable development through systematic literature review

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• Shruti Agrawal   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1620-9429 1 , 5 ,
• Nidhi Sharma 1 , 5 ,
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The pursuit of happiness has been an essential goal of individuals and countries throughout history. In the past few years, researchers and academicians have developed a huge interest in the notion of a ‘happiness economy’ that aims to prioritize subjective well-being and life satisfaction over traditional economic indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Over the past few years, many countries have adopted a happiness and well-being-oriented framework to re-design the welfare policies and assess environmental, social, economic, and sustainable progress. Such a policy framework focuses on human and planetary well-being instead of material growth and income. The present study offers a comprehensive summary of the existing studies on the subject, exploring how a happiness economy framework can help achieve sustainable development. For this purpose, a systematic literature review (SLR) summarised 257 research publications from 1995 to 2023. The review yielded five major thematic clusters, namely- (i) Going beyond GDP: Transition towards happiness economy, (ii) Rethinking growth for sustainability and ecological regeneration, (iii) Beyond money and happiness policy, (iv) Health, human capital and wellbeing and (v) Policy push for happiness economy. Furthermore, the study proposes future research directions to help researchers and policymakers build a happiness economy framework.

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1 Introduction

Happiness is considered the ultimate goal of human beings (Ikeda, 2010 ; Lama, 2012 ). All economic, social, environmental and political human activities are aligned towards achieving this goal. This fundamental pursuit of human life introduces a new scope of research, namely the ‘happiness economy’ (Agrawal and Sharma 2023 ). The happiness economy is an emerging economic domain wherein many countries are working to envision and implement a happiness-oriented framework by expanding how they measure economic success, which includes wellbeing and sustainability (Cook and Davíðsdóttir 2021 ; Forgeard et al., 2011 ). The investigation of happiness, life-satisfaction and subjective well-being has witnessed increasing research interest across the disciplines- from psychology, philosophy, psychiatry, and cognitive neuroscience to sociology, economics and management (Diener 1984 ; Hallberg and Kullenberg, 2019 ).

In the post-Covid era, the world seeks an enormous transformation shift in the public system (Costanza 2020 ). However, public authorities need more time to realize such needs. To experience the ‘policy transformation’ within the coming few years, we require a paradigm shift that helps warm peoples’ hearts and minds. The new economic paradigm can penetrate the policy processes in advanced economies and every part of the world affected by the epidemic with the support of intellectuals, researchers, entrepreneurs and professionals.

OECD ( 2016 ) proposed a well-being economy framework to measure living conditions and people’s well-being. In 2020, developed countries like Finland, New Zealand, Iceland, Scotland and Wales have become members of the Wellbeing Economy Government (WEGo) (Abrar 2021 ). Since then, the network of government and international authorities across the globe has gained a quick momentum concerning an increasing tendency about a growing tendency to concentrate governmental decisions around human well-being rather than wealth and economic growth (Coscieme et al. 2019 ; Costanza et al. 2020 ).

In light of these circumstances, the purpose of this article is to describe the concept of a “happiness economy” or one that seeks to give everyone fair possibilities for growth, a sense of social inclusion, and stability that can support human resilience (Coyne and Boettke 2006 ). It provides a promising route towards improved social well-being and environmental health and is oriented towards serving individuals and communities (Skul’skaya & Shirokova, 2010 ). Moreover, the happiness economy paradigm is a transition from material production and consumption of commodities and services as the only means to economic development towards embracing a considerable variety of economic, social, environmental and subjective well-being dynamics that are considered fundamental contributors to human happiness (Atkinson et al., 2012 ; King et al., 2014 ; Agrawal and Sharma 2023 ). In following so, it reflects the ‘beyond growth’ approach that empathizes with the revised concept of growth, which is not centred around an increase in income or material production; instead it is grounded in the philosophy of achieving greater happiness for more people (Fioramonti et al. 2019a ).

Whereas the other critiques of economic growth emphasize contraction, frugality and deprivation, the happiness economy relies on a cumulative approach of humanity, hope and well-being, with a perceptive to build a ‘forward-looking’ narrative of ways for humans to live a happy and motivated life by inspiring the cumulative actions and encouraging policy-reforms in the measuring growth of an economy (Stucke 2013 ). Agrawal et al. ( 2023a , b ) explore the domain of happiness economics through a review of the various trends coupled with the future directions and highlight why it needs to be supported for a well-managed economic system and a happy society.

In this paper, we define a “happiness economy as an economy that aims to achieve the well-being of individuals in a nation, promoting human happiness, environmental up-gradation, and sustainability. Alternatively, as an economy where the wellbeing of people counts more than the goals of production and income”. Moreover, we have examined the existing body of research on the happiness economy and analyzed the emerging research themes related to rethinking the conventional approach to economic growth. We conclude by discussing how the happiness economy concept has been accepted so far and realizing its importance by triggering policy reforms at the societal level, by outlining potential future directions that might be included into the current national post-growth policies.

Various researchers and experts in the field of happiness economy support the idea that there is a lack of thorough studies related to the concept, definitions, and themes of the happiness economy model in the nations. This gap has motivated us to conduct a SLR in order to identify the evolution in the domain of happiness economy and to identify the emerging themes in this context. Therefore, this present study seeks to offer a holistic outline of the emerging research area of the happiness economy and helps to understand how the happiness economy can accelerate sustainable development. With the following research questions, this study seeks to give an all-encompassing review of this subject.

What is the annual publication trend in this domain and the most contributing authors, journals, countries etc?

Which themes and upcoming research areas are present in this field?

What directions will the happiness economics study field go in the future?

The SCOPUS database was used to achieve the above research objectives. We have selected 257 articles for examination by hand-selecting the pertinent keywords and going over each one. In the methods section, a thorough explanation of the procedures for gathering, reviewing, and selecting documents is provided.

The remainder of this paper is structured as follows; A thorough survey of the literature on the happiness economy is provided in Sect.  2 . The research approach employed in the study is presented in Sect.  3 . A thorough data analysis of the research findings is given in Sect.  4 . After discussing the results in Sect.  5 , Sect.  6 suggests areas for further research in this field. The study is summarised with a conclusion in Sect.  7 . Section  8 outlines the study’s limitation.

2 Literature review

The supporters of conventional economic growth proclaim that the material production of goods and services and consumption is vital to enhancing one’s living standards. The statement is true to some degree, mainly in countries of enormous deprivation. Some studies have found significantly less correlation between growth and happiness after fulfilling minimum threshold needs (Easterlin 1995 ; Kahneman and Krueger, 2006 ; Inglehart et al., 2008 ). These studies recommend that rather than concentrating solely on economic growth, governmental policy should give priority to non-economic aspects of human existence above a particular income level. According to some researchers, it is challenging to distinguish between the use and emissions of natural resources and economic growth (absolute decoupling) because of the interdependence between socioeconomic conditions and their biophysical basis (Wiedenhofer et al. 2020 ; Wang and Su, 2019 ; Wu et al., 2018 ). However, a shred of increasing evidence shows that it could be possible for humans to maintain a quality of life and a decent standard of living inside the ecological frontier of the environment, given that a contemporary perspective on the production and use of materials are adopted in conjunction with more fair wealth distribution (Millward-Hopkins et al. 2020 ; Bengtsson et al., 2018 ; Ni et al., 2022 ).

The scholarly discourse and institutional framework on the relationship between happiness and economic progress are synthesised in the happiness economy (Frey and Gallus 2012 ; Sohn, 2010 ; Clark et al., 2016 ; Easterlin, 2015 ; Su et al., 2022 ). From a happiness economy perspective, extreme materialism is unsustainable as it significantly impacts natural resources and hinders social coherence and individuals psychological and physical well-being (Fioramonti et al. 2022a ). Additionally, inequalities within countries have grown, while psychological suffering has increased, especially during accelerated growth (Vicente 2020 ; Galbraith, 2009 ). The modern world is witnessing anxiety, depression, wars, reduction of empathy, climate change, pandemics, loss of social bonds and other psychological disorders (Brahmi et al., 2022 ; Santini et al., 2015 ).

It has been scientifically proven that cordial human relations, care-based activity, voluntary activities and the living environment immensely impact a person’s health and societal well-being (Bowler et al. 2010 ; Keniger et al., 2013 ). Ecological economists demonstrated that free ecosystem services have enhanced human well-being (Fang et al. 2022 ). Social epidemiologists have long argued that an increase in inequalities has a negative influence on society while providing equality tends to improve significant objective ways of well-being, from healthier communities to happier communities, declining hate and crime and enhancing social cohesion, productivity, unity and mutual trust (Aiyar and Ebeke 2020 ; Ferriss, 2010 ).

From moving beyond materialistic growth, the happiness economy promotes, appreciates, and protects the environmental, societal, and human capital contributions that lead to cummalative well-being. In a happiness economy framework, a multidimensional approach is needed to evaluate the level of development based on the environmental parameters, health outcomes, as well as public trust, hope, value-creating education and social bonds (Agrawal and Sharma 2023 ; Bayani et al. 2023 ; Lavrov, 2010 ). Such factors have consistently been excluded from any traditional concept or assessment of economic growth. As a result, countries have promoted more industrial activities that deteriorate the authentic ways of human well-being and, hence, the foundations of economic progress.

An excess of production can create a detrimental effect on climate and people’s health, thereby creating a negative externality for society (Fioramonti et al. 2022b ). Moderation of output may be more efficient and desirable than hyper/over-production, as the former can reduce negative environmental externalities (e.g. waste, climate change) and create positive externalities (e.g. employment of the local resources and community) (Kim et al. 2019 ; Kinman and Jones, 2008 ). Moreover, people can also be productive in other contexts outside of the workplace, such as as volunteers, business owners, artists, friends, or members of the community (Fioramonti et al. 2022a ).

Various scholars and scientific research have established that the essential contributions to happiness in one’s life are made by natural surroundings, green and blue spaces, eco-friendly environment, healthy social relations, spirituality, good health, responsible consumption and value-creating education (Helliwell et al. 2021 ; Francart et al., 2018 ; Armstrong et al., 2016 ; Gilead, 2016 ; Giannetti et al., 2015 ). Unfortunately, existing conventional growth theories have ignored all these significant contributions. For example, GDP considers natural ecosystems as economically helpful only up until they are mined and their products are traded (Carrero et al. 2020 ). The non-market benefits they generate, such as natural fertilization, soil regeneration, climate regulation, clean air and maintenance of biodiversity, are entirely ignored (Boyd 2007 ; Hirschauer et al., 2014). The quality time people spend with their families and communities for leisure, educating future generations and making a healthy communal harmony is regarded meaningless, even in the event that they are important to enhance people’s well-being and, hence, to assist any dimension of economic engagement (Griep et al. 2015 ; Agrawal et al., 2020 ). Similarly, if an economy is focusing on people’s healthy lifestyle (for example, by providing comfortable working hours, improving work-life balance, emphasizing mental health, focusing on healthy food, reducing pollution, and promoting sustainable consumption), it is not considered in sync with the growth paradigm (Roy 2021 ; Scrieciu et al., 2013; Shrivastava and Zsolnai 2022 ; Lauzon et al., 2023 ).

Among the latest reviews, Bayani et al. ( 2023 ) highlight that the economics of happiness helps reduce the country’s financial crime by providing a livelihood that reduces financial delinquency. Chen ( 2023 ) highlights that smart city performance enhances urban happiness by adopting green spaces, reusing and recycling products, and controlling pollution. The study by (Agrawal and Sharma 2023 ) proposed a conceptual framework for a happiness economy to achieve sustainability by going beyond GDP. Similarly, Fioramonti et al. ( 2019b ) explored going beyond GDP for a transition towards a happy and well-being economy. The article by Laurent et al. ( 2022 ) has intensively reviewed the well-being indicators in Rome and proposed a conceptual framework for it.

Table  1 provides a thorough summary of the prior review studies about the happiness economy and its contribution to public policy and sustainable development.

3 Research methodology

In the current study, we have adopted an integrative review approach of SLR and bibliometric analysis of the academic literature to get a detailed knowledge of the study, which could also help propose future research avenues. The existing scientific production’s qualitative and quantitative context must be incorporated for a conclusive decision. The study by Meredith ( 1993 ) defines that SLR enables an “integrating several different works on the same topic, summarising the common elements, contrasting the differences, and extending the work in some fashion”. In the present study, the “Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses” (PRISMA) is applied to perform the SLR to follow systematic and transparent steps for the research methodology, as shown in Fig.  1 . The PRISMA technique includes the identification, screening, eligibility, and exclusion criteria parts of the review process.

Additionally, examples of the data abstraction and analysis processes are provided (Mengist et al. 2020 ; Moher et al., 2015 ). The four main phases of the PRISMA process are eligibility, identification, screening, and data abstraction and analysis. Because the PRISMA technique employs sequential steps to accomplish the study’s purpose, it benefits SLR research. Moreover, the bibliometric analysis helps summarise the existing literature’s bibliographic data and determine the emerging condition of the intellectual structure and developing tendencies in the specified research domain (Dervis 2019 ).

3.1 Identification

The step to conduct the PRISMA is the identification of the relevant keywords to initiate the search for material. Next, search strings for the digital library’s search services are created using the selected keywords. The basic search query is for digital library article titles, keywords, and abstracts. Next, a Boolean AND or OR operator is used to generate the search string (Boolean combinations of the operators may also be used).

There are different search databases to conduct the review studies, such as Scopus, Sage, Web of Science, IEEE, and Google Scholar. Among all the available search databases, we have used the Scopus database to identify the articles; since 84% of the material on Web of Science (WoS) overlaps with Scopus, very few authors have addressed the benefits of adopting Scopus over WoS (Mongeon and Paul-Hus 2016 ). Scopus is widely used by academicians and researchers for quantitative analysis (Donthu et al. 2021 ). It is the biggest database of scientific research and contains citations and abstracts from peer-reviewed publications consisting of journal research articles, books and conference articles (Farooque et al., 2019 ; Dhayal et al., 2022 ; Brahmi et al., 2022 ). The following search term was used: (TITLE-ABS-KEY (“happiness economy” OR “economics of happiness” OR “happiness in economy” OR “economy of happiness” OR “economy of wellbeing” OR “wellbeing economy” OR “wellbeing in economy” OR “beyond growth”). This process yields 380 artciles in the initial phase.

3.2 Screening

The second phase is completed by all identified articles from the Scopus database obtained from the search string in the identification phase. The publications are either included or excluded throughout the screening process based on the standards established by the authors and with the aid of particular databases. Exclusion and inclusion criteria are shown during the screening phase to identify pertinent articles for the systematic review procedure. The timeline of this study’s selected articles is from 1995 to 2023. The first article related to the research domain was published in 1995. The second criterion for the inclusion includes the types of documents. In the present research, the authors have regarded only peer-reviewed journals and review articles. Other types of articles, such as books, book chapters, conference articles, notes, and editorials, are excluded to maintain the quality of the review. The third inclusion and exclusion criterion is based on language. All the non-English language documents are excluded to avoid translation confusion; hence, only the English language articles are considered for the final review. After the screening process, 297 articles are obtained.

3.3 Eligibility

Articles are manually selected or excluded depending on specific criteria specified by the authors during the eligibility process. During the elimination process, the authors excluded the articles that did not fit into the scope of review after manual screening of the articles. Two hundred fifty-seven articles were selected after the eligibility procedure. These selected articles are carefully reviewed for the study by reviewing the titles, abstracts, and standards from earlier screening processes.

3.4 Data abstraction and analysis

Analysis and abstraction of data are part of the fourth step. Finally, 257 papers were taken into account for final review. After that, the studies are culled to identify pertinent themes and subthemes for the current investigation by thoroughly reviewing each article’s text. An integrative review is a form of study that combines mixed, qualitative, and quantitative research procedures. It is carried out as shown in Fig.  1 . R-studio Bibliometrix and VOSviewer version 1.6.18 were used to evaluate the final study dataset corpus of 257 articles. Since the Bibliometrix software package is a free-source tool programmed in the R language. It is proficient of conducting comprehensive scientific mapping. It also contains several graphical and statistical features with flexible and frequent updates (Agrawal et al. 2023a , b ).

Extraction of articles and selection process

This section provides an answer to the first research question, RQ1, by indicating the main information of corpus data, research publication trends, influential prolific authors, journals, countries and most used keywords, etc. (Refer to Tables  2 , 3 and 4 ) and (Refer to Figs.  2 , 3 , 4 , 5 and 6 ).

4.1 Bibliometric analysis

Table  2 shows the relevant information gathered from the publication-related details. It presents the cognitive knowledge of the research area, for instance, details about authors, annual average publication, average citations and collaboration index. By observing the rate of document publishing, the study illustrates how much has already been done and how much remains to be investigated.

The annual publication trend is shown in Fig.  2 . It is reflected that the first article related to happiness in an economy was released in the year 1995 when (Bowling 1995 ) published the article “What things are important in people’s lives? A survey of the public’s judgements to inform scales of health related quality of life” where the article discussed “quality of life” and “happiness” as an essential component of a healthy life. Oswald ( 1997 ) brought the concept of happiness and economics together and raised questions such as “Does money buy happiness?” or “Do you think your children’s lives will be better than your own?”. Eventually, the gross national product of the past year and the coming year’s exchange rate was no longer the concern; instead, happiness as the sublime moment became more accurate (Schyns 1998 ; Easterlin, 2001; Frey and Stutzer, 2005 ). Post-2013, we can see exponential growth in the publication trend, and the reason behind the growth is the report published by the “ Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi” Commission, which has identified limitations of GDP and questioned the metric of wealth, economic and societal progress. The affirmed questions have gained the attention of researchers and organizations, and thus, they have explored the alternatives to GDP. As a result, the “Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development” (OECD) have proposed a wellbeing framework. Some research work has significantly impacted that time, contributing to the immense growth in this research area (Sangha et al. 2015 ; Spruk and Kešeljević, 2015 ; Nunes et al., 2016 ).

Publication trend

Table  3 shows the top prolific journals concerning the topmost publications in the domain of happiness economy for the corpus of 257 articles, namely “International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health”, “Ecological Economics”, “Ecological Indicators”, “Sustainability” and “Journal of Cleaner Production” with 5, 4, 4,4 and 4 articles respectively (Refer to Table  4 ). Moreover, the most influential journals with maximum citations are “Nature Human Behavior”, “Quality of Life Research”, “Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis”, “Journal of Cleaner Production” and “Ecological Economics”, with 219, 205, 186, 154 and 142 citations, respectively. “Journal of Cleaner Production” and “Ecological Economics” are highly prolific and the most influential journals in the happiness economy research domain.

Table  4 shows the most influential authors. Baños, R.M. and Botella, C. are the two most contributing authors with maximum publications. For the maximum number of citations, Zheng G. and Coscieme L. are the topmost authors for their research work. The nations were sorted according to the quantity of publications, and Fig.  3 showed where the top ten countries with the highest number of publications are listed originated. It can be seen from the figure that the United Stated has contributed the maximum publications, 66, followed by the United Kingdom with 41 articles, followed by Germany with 32 articles. It is worth noting that emerging nation such as India and China have also made significant contributions.

Top ten contributing countries

Figure  4 shows semantic network analysis in which the relationships between words in individual texts are performed. In the present study, we have identified word frequency distributions and the co-occurrences of the authors’ keywords in this study. We employed co-word analysis to find repeated keywords or terms in the title, abstract, or body of a text. In Fig.  5 , the circle’s colour represents a particular cluster, and the circle’s radius indicates how frequently the words occur. The size of a keyword’s node indicates how frequently that keyword appears. The arcs connecting the nodes represent their co-occurrence in the same publication. The greater the distance between two nodes, the more often the two terms co-occur. It can be seen that “happiness” is linked with “growth” and “life satisfaction”. The nodes of “green economy”, “ecological economics”, and “climate change” are in a separate cluster that shows they are emerging areas, and future studies can explore the relationship between happiness economy with these keywords.

Co-ocurrance of author’s keyword (Author’s compilation)

4.2 Thematic map analysis through R studio

The thematic analysis map, as shown in Fig.  5 , displays, beneath the author’s keywords, the visualisation of four distinct topic typologies produced via a biblioshiny interface. The thematic map shows nine themes/clusters under four quadrants segregated in “Callon’s centrality” and “density value”. The degree of interconnectedness between networks is determined by Callon’s centrality, while Callon’s density determines the internal strength of networks. (Chen et al. 2019 ). The rectangular boxes in Fig.  5 represent the subthemes under each topic or cluster that are either directly or indirectly connected to the major themes, based on the available research. In the upper-right quadrant, four themes have appeared, namely “circular economy”, “well-being economy”, “depression”, and “sustainable development”, they fall under the category of motor themes since they are extremely pertinent to the research field, highly repetitious, and well-developed. When compared to other issues with internal linkages but few exterior relations, “urban population” in the upper-left quadrant is seen as a niche concern since it is not as significant. This cluster may have affected the urban population’s happiness (Knickel et al. 2021 ). “Social innovation” is categorised as an emerging or declining subject with low centrality and density, meaning it is peripheral and undeveloped. It is positioned in the lower-left quadrant. Last but not least, the transversal and fundamental themes “happiness economy”, “subjective well-being”, and “climate change” in the lower-right quadrant are seen to be crucial to the happiness economy study field but are still in the early stages of development. As a result, future research must place greater emphasis on the quantitative and qualitative growth of the study area in light of the key themes that have been identified.

Thematic map analysis

4.3 Science mapping through cluster analysis

In the study, science mapping was conducted to examine the interrelationship between the research domains that could be intellectual (Aria and Cuccurullo 2017 ; Donthu et al. 2021 ). It includes various techniques, such as co-authorship analysis, co-occurrence analysis, bibliographic coupling, etc. We have used R-Studio for the study’s temporal analysis by cluster analysis. To answer RQ2, the authors have performed a qualitative examination of the emerging cluster themes through the science mapping of the existing research corpus of 257 articles by performing bibliographic coupling of documents. Bibliographic coupling analysis helps identify clusters reflecting the most recent research themes in the happiness economy field to illuminate the field’s current areas of interest.

The visual presentation of science mapping relied on VoSviewer version 1.6.18 (refer to Fig.  6 ). Five significant clusters emerged in this research domain (refer to Table  5 ). Going beyond GDP: Transition towards happiness economy, rethinking growth for sustainability and ecological regeneration, beyond money and happiness policy, health, human capital and wellbeing and Policy-Push for happiness economy. A thorough examination identified cluster analyzes has also assists us in identifying potential future research proposals. (Franceschet 2009 )

4.4 Cluster 1: Going beyond GDP: transition towards happiness economy

It depicts from the green colour circles and nodes, where seven research articles were identified with a common theme of beyond GDP that can be seen in Fig.  6 . Cook and Davíðsdóttir ( 2021 ) investigated the linkages between the alternative measure of the beyond growth approach such as a well-being economy prespective and the SDGs. They proposed a conceptual model of a well-being economy consisting of four capital assets interrelated with SDGs that promote well-being goals and domains. To extend the concept of going beyond GDP, various economic well-being indicators are being aligned with the different economic, environmental, and social dimensions to target the set goals of SDG. It is found that the “Genuine Progress Indicator” (GPI) is consider as the most extensive method that covers the fourteen targets among the seventeen’s SDG’s. Cook et al. ( 2022 ) consider SDGs to represent the classical, neoclassical and growth-based economy model and as an emerging paradigm for a well-being economy. The significance of GDP is more recognized within the goals of sustainable development.

GPI is considered an alternative indicator of economic well-being. On this basis, excess consumption of high-quality energy will expand macro-economic activity, which GDP measures. For such, a conceptual exploration of the study is conducted on how pursuing “Sustainable Energy Development” (SED) that can increase the GPI results. As the study’s outcome, according to the GPI, SED will have a significant advantage in implementing energy and environment policy and will also contribute to the advancement of social and economic well-being. Coscieme et al. ( 2020a ) explored the connection between the unconditional growth of GDP and SDG. The author considered that policy coherence for sustainable development should lessen the damaging effects of cyclic manufacturing on the ecosystem. Thus, the services considered free of charge in the GDP model should be valued as a component of society. Generally, such services include ecosystem services and a myriad of “economic” functions like rainfall and carbon sequestration. To work for SDG 8, defined by the “United Nations Sustainable Development Goals” (UNSDGs), a higher GDP growth rate would eventually make it more difficult to achieve environmental targets and lessen inequality. Various guidelines were proposed to select alternative variables for SDG-8 to enhance coherence among all the SDG and other policies for sustainability.

Fioramonti et al. ( 2019a ) state their focus is to go beyond GDP toward a well-being economy rather than material output with the help of convergence reforms in policies and economic shifts. To achieve the SDG through protecting the environment, promoting equality, equitable development and sharing economy. The authors have developed the Sustainable Well-Being Index (SWBI) to consolidate the “Beyond GDP” streams as a metric of well-being matched with the objectives to achieve SDG. The indicators of well-being for an economy have enough possibility to connect current transformations in the economic policies and the economy that, generally, GDP is unable to capture.

Fioramonti et al. ( 2022a ) investigate the critical features of the Wellbeing Economy (WE), including its various parameters like work, technology, and productivity. Posting a WE framework that works for mainstream post-growth policy at the national and international levels was the study’s primary goal. The authors have focused on building a society that promotes well-being that should be empowering, adaptable, and integrative. A well-being economic model should develop new tools and indicators to monitor all ecological and human well-being contributors. A multidimensional approach including critical components for a well-being economy was proposed that creates value to re-focus on economic, societal, personal, and natural aspects. Rubio-Mozos et al. ( 2019 ) conducted in-depth interviews with Fourth Sector business leaders, entrepreneurs, and academicians to investigate the function of small and medium-sized businesses and the pressing need to update the economic model using a new measure in line with UN2030. They have proposed a network from “limits to growth” to a “sustainable well-being economy”.

4.5 Cluster 2: Rethinking growth for sustainability and ecological regeneration

Figure  6 depicts it from blue circles and nodes, wherein four papers were identified. Knickel et al. ( 2021 ) proposed an analytical approach by collecting the data from 11 European areas to examine the existing conditions, difficulties, and anticipated routes forward. The goal of the study is to define the many ideas of a sustainable well-being economy and territorial development plans that adhere to the fundamental characteristics of a well-being economy. A transition from a conventional economic viewpoint to a broader view of sustainable well-being is centred on regional development plans and shifting rural-urban interactions.

Pillay ( 2020 ) investigates the new theories of de-growth, ecosocialism, well-being and happiness economy to break the barriers of traditional economic debates by investigating ways to commercialise and subjugate the state to a society in line with non-human nature. The significant indicator of Gross National Happiness (GNH) is an alternative working indicator of development; thus, the Chinese wall between Buddha and Marx has been built. They questioned the perspective of Buddha and Marx, whether they were harmonized or became a counter-hegemonic movement. In order to determine if the happiness principle is grounded in spiritual values and aligns with the counter-hegemonic ecosocialist movement, the author examined the ecosocialist perspective. Shrivastava and Zsolnai ( 2022 ) have investigated the theoretical and practical ramifications of creative organisations for well-being rooted in the drive for a well-being economy. Wellbeing and happiness-focused economic frameworks are emerging primarily in developed countries. This new policy framework also abolishes GDP-based economic growth and prioritizes individual well-being and ecological regeneration. To understand its application and interpretation, Van Niekerk ( 2019 ) develops a conceptual framework and theoretical analysis of inclusive economics. It contributes to developing a new paradigm for economic growth, both theoretically and practically.

4.6 Cluster 3: ‘Beyond money’ and happiness policy

It depicts pink circles and nodes, wherein five articles were identified, as shown in Fig.  6 . According to Diener and Seligman ( 2004a ) economic indicators are critical in the early phases of economic growth when meeting basic requirements is the primary focus. However, as society becomes wealthier, an individual’s well-being becomes less dependent on money and more on social interactions and job satisfaction. Individuals reporting high well-being outperform those reporting low well-being in terms of income and performance. A national well-being index is required to evaluate well-being variables and shape policies systematically. Diener and Seligman ( 2018 ) propounded the ‘Beyond Money’ concept in 2004. In response to the shortcomings of GDP and economic measures, other quality-of-life indicators, such as health and education, have been created. The national account of well-being has been proposed as a common path to provide societies with an overall quality of life metric. While measuring the subjective well-being of people, the authors reasoned a societal indicator of the quality of life. In this article, the authors have proposed an economy of well-being model by combining subjective and objective measures to convince policymakers and academicians to enact policies that enhance human welfare. The well-being economy includes quality of life indicators and life satisfaction, subjective well-being and happiness.

Frey and Stutzer ( 2000 ) perceived the microeconomic well-being variables in countries. In the study, survey data was used from 6000 individuals in Switzerland and showed that the individuals are happier in developed democracies and institutions (government federalization). They analyzed the reported subjective well-being data to determine the function of federal and democratic institutions on an individual’s satisfaction with life. The study found a negative relationship between income and unemployment. Three criteria have been employed in the study to determine happiness: demographic and psychological traits, macro- and microeconomic factors, and constitutional circumstances. Thus, a new pair of determinants reflects happiness’s effect on individuals’ income, unemployment, inflation and income growth.

Happiness policy, according to Frey and Gallus ( 2013b ), is an intrinsic aspect of the democratic process in which various opinions are collected and examined. “Happiness policy” is far more critical than continuing a goal such as increasing national income and instead considered an official policy goal. The article focuses on how politicians behave differently when they believe that achieving happiness is the primary objective of policy. Frey et al. ( 2014 ) explored the three critical areas of happiness, which are positive and negative shocks on happiness, choice of comparison and its extent to derive the theoretical propositions that can be investigated in future research. It discussed the areas where a more novel and comprehensive theoretical framework is needed: comparison, adaptation, and happiness policy. Wolfgramm et al. ( 2020 ) derived a value-driven transformation framework in Māori economics of wellbeing. It contributes to a multilevel and comprehensive review of Māori economics and well-being. The framework is adopted to advance the policies and implement economies of well-being.

4.7 Cluster 4: Health, human capital and wellbeing

It is depicted as a red colour circle and nodes in Fig.  6 , and only three papers on empirical investigations were found. Laurent et al. ( 2022 ) investigated the Health-Environment Nexus report published by the “Wellbeing Economy Alliance”. In place of increased production and consumption, they suggested a comprehensive framework for human health and the environment that includes six essential paths. The six key pathways are well-being energy, sustainable food, health care, education, social cooperation and health-environment nexus. The proposed variables yield the co-benefits for the climate, health and sustainable economy. Steer clear of the false perception of trade-offs, such as balancing the economy against the environment or the need to save lives. McKinnon and Kennedy ( 2021 ) focuses on community economics of well-being that benefits entrepreneurs and employees. They investigated the interactions of four social enterprises that work for their employees inside and within the broader community. Cylus et al. ( 2020 ) proposed the opportunities and challenges in adopting the model of happiness or well-being in an economy as an alternative measure of GDP. Orekhov et al. ( 2020 ) proposed the derivation of happiness from the World Happiness Index (WHI) data to estimate the regression model for developed countries.

4.8 Cluster 5: Policy-push for happiness economy

It is depicted as an orange circle and nodes in Fig.  6 , and only five papers on empirical and review investigations were found. Oehler-Șincai et al. ( 2023 ) proposed the conceptual and practical perspective of household-income-labour dynamics for policy formulation. It discusses the measurement of well-being as a representation of various policies focusing on health, productivity, and longevity. It focuses on the role of policy in building the subjective and objective dimensions of well-being, defines the correlation between well-being, employment policies, and governance, is inclined to the well-being performance of various countries, and underscores present risks that jeopardize well-being. Musa et al. ( 2018 ) have developed a “community happiness index” by incorporating the four aspects of sustainability—economic, social, environmental, and urban governance—as well as the other sustainability domains, such as human well-being and eco-environmental well-being. From then onwards, community happiness and sustainable urban development emerged. Chernyahivska et al. ( 2020 ) developed strategies to raise the standard of living for people in countries undergoing economic transition by using the quality of life index. The methods uncovered are enhancing employment opportunities and uplifting the international labour market in urban and rural areas, prioritizing human capital, eliminating gender inequality, focusing on improving the individual’s health, and enhancing social protection. Zheng et al. ( 2019 ) investigated the livelihood and well-being index of the population that makes liveable conditions and city construction in society based on people’s happiness index. The structure of a liveable city should be emphasised on sustainable development. The growth strategy in urban areas is an essential aspect of building a liveable city. Frey and Gallus ( 2013a ) criticised the National Happiness Index as a policy goal in a country because it cannot be measured and thus fails to measure the true happiness of people. To measure real happiness, the government should establish living conditions that enable individuals to become happy. The rule of law and human rights must support the process.

The structure of a liveable city should be emphasized in sustainable development. The growth strategy in urban areas is an essential aspect of building a liveable city. Frey and Gallus ( 2013a ) criticized the National Happiness Index as a policy goal in a country because it cannot be measured and thus fails to identify the true individuals happiness. To measure real happiness, the government should establish living conditions that enable individuals to be happy. The process needs to be supported by human rights and the rule of law.

Visualization of cluster analysis

5 Discussion of findings

Concerns like the improved quality-of-life and a decent standard of living within the ecological frontier of the environment have various effects on individuals overall well-being and life satisfaction. The ‘beyond growth’ approach empathized with the revised concept of growth, which is based on the idea of maximising happiness for a larger number of people rather than being driven by a desire for financial wealth or production. In that aspect, the notion of happiness economy is designed that prioritizes serving both people and the environment over the other. This present article has focused on the beyond growth approach and towards a new economic paradigm by doing bibliometric and visual analysis on the dataset that was obtained from Scopus, helping to determine which nations, publications, and authors were most significant in this field of study.

In this field of study, developed nations have made significant contributions as compared to the developing nations. In total, 59 countries have made the substantial contribution to the beyond growth approach literature an some of them have proposed their respective national well-being economy framwework. Among 59 countries the United States and the United Kingdom have been crucial to the publishing. With the exception of five of the top 10 nations, Europe contributes the most to scientific research. The existing research shows the inclination of developed and developing countries to build a new economic paradigm that goes beyond growth by prioritizing the happiness level at individual as well as at collective level.

The most prolific journals in this research domain are the “International Journal of Environmental Research” and “Public Health” with the total publication of 5 and 4. The top two cited journals were the “ Nature Human Behavior” with 219 citations and the “Quality of Life Research” with 205 citations. Due to various economic and non-economic factors, these journals struggled to strike a balance between scientific accuracy and timeliness, and it became vital to spread accurate and logical knowledge. For, example, discussing the relationship between inequality and well-being, exploring the challenges and opportunites of happiness economy in different countries, assessing the role of health in all policies to support the transition to the well-being economy. Visualization of semantic network analysis of co-ocurrance of authors keywords from the VOSviewer showed the future research scope to explore the association between happiness economy along with green economy, climate change, spirituality and sustainability. However, in the thematic mapping, the motor themes denotes the themes that are well-developed and repetative in research, such as, well-being economy, depression, sustainable development and circular economy. The basic themes depicts the developing and transveral themes such as happiness economy, subjective well-being and climate condition. As a result, future research must place greater emphasis on the theoretical and practical expansion of the research field in view of the determined major subjects.

The present study have performed the cluster analysis to identify the emerging research themes in this domain through VOSviewer that helps to analyze the network of published documents. Based on published papers, the author can analyse the interconnected network structure with the use of cluster analysis. We have identified the top five clusters from the study. Each cluster denote the specific and defined theme of the research in this domain. In cluster 1, the majorly of the authors are working in the area of going beyond GDP and transition towards happiness economy, which consists of empirical and review studies. Cluster 2 represents that authors are exploring the relationship between rethinking growth for sustainability and ecological regeneration to evaluate the transition from a conventional economic thought to a broader view of sustainable well-being which is centred on regional development plans and shifting rural-urban interactions. In cluster 3, the authors are exploring the beyond money and happiness policy themes and identified the shortcomings of GDP and economic measures, other quality-of-life indicators, such as health and education. They have proposed the well-being index to evaluate the well-being variables and shape socio-economic policies systematically. The authors have proposed an economy of well-being model by combining subjective and objective measures to convince policymakers and academicians to enact policies that enhance human welfare. The well-being economy includes quality of life indicators and life satisfaction, subjective well-being and happiness. In cluster 4, the authors are working of related theme of Health, human capital and wellbeing, whereby they have put up a comprehensive framework for health and the environment that includes several important avenues for prioritising human and ecological well-being over increased production and consumption. In cluster 5, the authors have suggested the policy-push for happiness economy in which they have identified the conceptual and practical perspective of household-income-labour dynamics for policy formulation. Majorly of the authors in this clutster have focused on the role of policy in building the subjective and objective dimensions of well-being, defines the correlation between well-being, employment policies, and governance, is inclined to the well-being performance of various countries, and underscores present risks that jeopardize well-being. Hence, the present study will give academics, researchers, and policymakers a thorough understanding of the productivity, features, key factors, and research outcomes in this field of study.

6 Scope for future research avenues

The emergence of a happiness economy will transform society’s traditional welfare measure. Such changes will generate more reliable and practical means to measure the well-being or welfare of an economy. After a rigorous analysis of the existing literature, we have proposed the scope for future research in Table  6 .

7 Conclusion

In 2015, the United Nations proposed the pathbreaking and ambitious seventeen “Sustainable Development Goals” (SDGs) for countries to steer their policies toward achieving them by 2030. In reality, economic growth remains central to the agenda for SDGs, demonstrating the absence of a ground-breaking and inspirational vision that might genuinely place people and their happiness at the core of a new paradigm for development. As this research has reflect, there are various evidence that the happiness economy strategy is well-suited to permeate policies geared towards sustainable development. In this context, ‘happiness’ may be a strong concept that ensures the post-2030 growth will resonate with the socioeconomic and environmental traits of everyone around the world while motivating public policies for happiness.

The current research has emphasized the many dynamics of the happiness economy by using a bibliometric analytic study of 257 articles. We have concluded that the happiness economy is an emerging area that includes different dimensions of happiness, such as ecological regeneration, circular economy, sustainability, sustainable well-being, economic well-being, subjective well-being, and well-being economy. In addition to taking into consideration the advantages and disadvantages of human participation in the market, a happiness-based economic system would offer new metrics to assess all contributions to human and planetary well-being. In terms of theoretical ramifications, we suggest that future scholars concentrate on fusing the welfare and happiness theory with economic policy. As countries are predisposed to generate disharmony and imbalance, maximizing societal well-being now entails expanding sustainable development. Since the happiness economy is still a relatively novel field, it offers numerous potential research opportunities.

8 Limitations

Similar to every other research, this one has significant restrictions as well. We are primarily concerned that all our data were extracted from the Scopus database. Furthermore, future research can utilize other software like BibExcel and Gephi to expound novel variables and linkages. Given the research limitations, this article still provides insightful and relevant direction to policymakers, scholars, and those intrigued by the idea of happiness and well-being in mainstream economics.

The study offers scope for future research in connecting the happiness economy framework with different SDGs. Future studies can also carry empirical research towards creating a universally acceptable ‘happiness economy index’ with human and planetary well-being at its core.

Data availability

Data not used in this article.

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Agrawal, S., Sharma, N., Dhayal, K.S. et al. From economic wealth to well-being: exploring the importance of happiness economy for sustainable development through systematic literature review. Qual Quant (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11135-024-01892-z

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Global trends in the scientific research of the health economics: a bibliometric analysis from 1975 to 2022

• Liliana Barbu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0641-7483 1  

Health Economics Review volume  13 , Article number:  31 ( 2023 ) Cite this article

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Health science is evolving extremely rapidly at worldwide level. There is a large volume of articles about health economics that are published each year. The main purpose of this research is to explore health economics in the world's scholarly literature based on a scient metric analysis to outline the evolution of research in the field.

The Web of Science repository was used to get the data (1975–2022). The study explores 1620 documents from health economics. CiteSpace software was used to provide network visualisations. Four thousand ninety-six authors, 1723 institutions, 847 journals and 82 countries were involved in the sample. The current research contains a descriptive analysis, a co-authorship analysis, a co-citation analysis, and a co-occurrence analysis in health economics.

Drummond M.F (author), the USA (country), University of London (institution) and Value Health (journal) are among the most important contributors to the health economics literature. Co-authorship analysis highlights that cooperation between authors, institutions and countries is weak. However, Drummond M.F. is the most collaborative author, the USA is the most collaborative country, and University of York is the most collaborative institution. The study offers an image about the most co-cited references (Arrow K.J., 1963), authors (Margolis H.) and journals (British Medical Journal). The current research hotspots in health economics are “behavioural economics” and “economic evaluation”. The main findings should be interpreted in accordance with the selection strategy used in this paper.

All in all, the paper maps the literature on health economics and may be used for future research.

Introduction

The health economy is a branch of the economy that deals with concerns of the production and consumption of health services and healthcare that relate to efficiency, effectiveness, value, and behaviour. Applying economic ideas, concepts, and methods to institutions, actors, and activities that have an impact on people's health is known as health economics [ 1 ]. The health economy is studying how to allocate limited resources to meet human desires in the medical industry and disease care. The health economy often tries to meet the most pressing challenges facing the health system. Studies in health economics provide to decision-makers precious information about the effective use of resources that are available to maximize health benefits.

The health economics is a component of public health, a component that It can be used to examine health issues and medical treatment. Health economists consider the origin of their discipline to Petty W. (1623–1687) [ 2 ] who propose valuation of human life based on a person’s contribution to national production. Arrow K. is credited with creating the field of health economics in a work where he conceptually distinguished between health and other goods [ 3 ]. Since Arrow K.'s fundamental publication on health economics from 1963, the scale of the healthcare sector, the share of public budgets allocated to healthcare, and the body of research on health economics have all increased significantly [ 4 ].

The current pandemic context has proved the need for a functioning public health system capable of meeting any challenges. The World Health Organization report for 2020 presents an examination of 190 nations' global health spending from 2000 to 2018. The report shows that global health spending has increased consistently between 2000 and 2018, reaching $ 8.3 trillion, or 10% of world GDP [ 5 ]. At the level of OECD Member States, the latest estimates show an average increase in health spending of about 3.3% in 2019, whereas health spending as a percentage of GDP stayed about where it had been in prior years, at 8.8% [ 6 ]. These indicators rose sharply in 2020, as economies faced a pandemic. The increases were driven by an increase in the level of allocation of government resources for health, while private spending on health tended to decline. At EU level, the public sector plays a major role in funding health services. In 2/3 of Member States, more than 70% of health spending is funded by the public sector [ 7 ]. In 2020, the EU's overall public health spending was €1.073 billion, or 8.0% of GDP ( https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Government_expenditure_on_health ). For governments, public spending on health is one of the spending categories with the quickest growth.

Health economics is the application of economic theory, models, and empirical techniques to the analysis of decision-making by individuals, health care providers, and governments regarding health and health care. Even though the methodologies are distinct in terms of health care, health economics aims to apply the same analytical tools that would be applied to any good or service that the economy provides [ 8 ]. By offering a clear framework for decision-making based on the efficiency principle, health economics seeks to simplify decision-making [ 9 ]. Extensive government interference, insoluble uncertainty in many dimensions, asymmetric knowledge, barriers to entry, externality, and the presence of a third-party agent are all characteristics that set health economics apart from other fields [ 10 ].

Health economics is the field were interdisciplinarity bring additional value for society. Health economics development has not been without controversy. Health economics refers to a variety of elements that interact to affect the expenses and spending of the healthcare sector. Its controversy rises from the roles of people, healthcare providers, insurers, governmental bodies, and private companies in influencing the healthcare sector expenses. The parties that interact in this field have some conflicting goals. On the one hand, health care policymakers and public hospitals have as objective to provide real value to the patients, to balance public interest and economic restrictions. On the other hand, private hospitals, insurance companies aim to obtain profit for their shareholders. There are several weaknesses that should be rectified in the future. Among weaknesses it can be found deficiencies in the supply of health economists [ 11 ], a lack of financial resource independence between the local and central levels, the key macroeconomic variables' unfavourable behaviour, and the difficulty in developing new financing alternatives [ 12 ]. In addition to having too close relationships to national institutions and sponsors of health economics research, health economics also has excessively loose connections with general economic theory [ 13 ]. Considering increased demands in healthcare services and limited health care budgets, health economics faces real challenges in providing decision making frameworks and there will always be challenging healthcare decisions. Although it has not always been an impartial instrument, health economics does give useful information for policy [ 14 ]. Regarding how well economics integrates with promoting health, there is scepticism, and public health has mixed feelings on the subject. Health economics has been accused of focusing more on the consumption of healthcare services than the creation of healthcare [ 15 ]. Despite several methodological limitations, health economics can provide helpful concepts and principles that aid in comprehending the effects of resource allocation decisions [ 9 ]. All practitioners must have a elementary comprehension of some economic concepts to both understand the helpful ideas the field may provide and recognize its inadequacies.

The main purpose of the research is to examine the health economics literature published worldwide based on a scient metric analysis to outline the development of the field's research. The existence of a multitude of articles published on health economics determines the need to address and measure it quantitatively. Such an analysis is justified by the need must be aware of the current trends and future directions of research in the field of health economics. Health science is evolving extremely rapidly at worldwide level. There is a large volume of articles about health economics that are published each year. Another argument is that there several computer programs which allows for scient metric analysis of health economics publications. This article contributes to the bibliometric literature on health economics by offering answers to the subsequent research inquiries: How scientific production has evolved in health economics? Who are the most important authors and publications in health economics? What are the geographical and institutional hubs of knowledge production in health economics? What kind of collaboration between authors, organizations, and nations are there in the field of health economics research? Which are the most cited authors and the most cited papers, and which are the most attractive journals for publishing research results in health economics? What are the most debated conceptual approaches in health economics?

The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. The second section introduces a short literature review. Research methodology and data collection are presented in Sect. 3. Section 4 contains the quantitative and qualitative scient metric analysis on health economics by using CiteSpace software (descriptive analysis, collaboration analysis, co-citation analysis and keywords co-occurrence analysis). The last part concludes the analysis, presents the research limitations, and describes future directions of research.

Literature background

Although there are thousands of articles published on health economics, very few articles aim for bibliometric analysis of the field and use computer programs. A first article published by Rubin, R. M. and Chang, C. F. (2003) aims at the study of 5,545 indexed articles, in the period 1991–2000, in the EconLit database, in the Health Economics section [ 16 ]. The second study is published by Wagstaff, A. and Culyer, A. J. in 2012 and extends the previous bibliometric research done by Rubin and Chang also based on the articles indexed in EconLit on health, over 40 years [ 17 ]. The third study, published by Moral-Munoz J.A et all in 2020, focuses on articles indexed in the Web of Science, between 2010 and 2019, which have the word "health" and do not use scientometric software [ 18 ].

It would be worth mentioning a descriptive analysis of the field conducted by Jakovljevic M. and Pejcic A. in 2017, but without the use of bibliometric indicators. The authors quantitatively analyze health economics publications by querying the PubMed, Scopus, WoS and NHS economic evaluation Database between 2000 and 2016 and conclude with the existence of an upward flow of health economics publications [ 19 ]. In this context, the proposed research is characterized by focusing on WoS articles that refer strictly to "health economics" and their computer processing to obtain maps and connections between studies.

Research methodology

Research methods.

In the current paper two research methods were used: bibliometric analysis and knowledge mapping. Regarding the first one, it should be mentioned that bibliometric research methods are used delivering quantitative analysis of textual works, in this case publications about health economics. This method allows bibliographic overviews of scientific production in the field. In the scientific community, the technique is increasingly employed to provide details regarding relationships between various groups [ 20 ]. Bibliometric analysis uses statistical tools and different metrics as part of the analysis (frequency/ count, co-citation, co-authorship, co-occurrence, betweenness centrality, citation burst, modularity, centrality, sigma, Silhouette etc.). Bibliometric analysis naturally presents itself as a tool to qualify, then quantify, the study conducted [ 21 ].

Regarding the second one, bibliometric analysis uses a large quantity of information that should be transformed in knowledge. This is done by using data visualization and knowledge maps. An enormous and complex collection of knowledge resources can be more easily accessed and navigated by using knowledge mapping strategies [ 22 ]. Knowledge mapping is the process of making knowledge maps, it makes explicit knowledge graphic and visual. Knowledge maps are static, they are a “snapshot in time” that aids in understanding and organizing knowledge flow for researchers [ 23 ]. A process, method, or instrument called “knowledge mapping” is used to analyse knowledge to find traits or meanings and perceive knowledge in an understandable and transparent way [ 24 ]. One of the advantages of knowledge mapping includes the freedom to combine without restriction, i.e., without restrictions on the number of connections and concepts that can be established [ 25 ].

Data source and search strategy

For this analysis we decided to use one of the most reliable databases: Web of Science (WoS) because it contains a data for large period. The data was retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection by using title search tool TI = (health economics). The primary literature data were downloaded on 7th of October 2022. The query objective was to integrate in this analysis all research papers related to health economics. We did not introduce any restrictions regarding the topic or time span for searching documents. We intend to have a comprehensive view of the research area and to see its evolution over time. As a result, 2340 documents were retrieved. Among publications about health economics, the most numerous documents are the articles (37.6%), followed by editor materials (19.8%), meeting abstracts (13.9%) and book reviews (13.3%). There are also review articles on the subject, proceeding papers, letters, books, and book chapters which were kept in the sample. The other types of documents were removed resulting a sample of 2305 publications. The language of almost all publications is English (91.4%), followed by German (4.3%). The percentage of publications produced in other languages, such as French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian etc. is less than 1.5% for each of them. Publications in other languages than English were eliminated, remaining 2108 documents in the sample.

The next step is to identify and remove duplicates by using Excel function (Conditional Formatting – Highlight Duplicate Values), therefore 8 duplicates were removed. In the sample under analysis, a multitude of types of documents indexed in WoS and referring to the concept of health economics can be observed. During the step of checking for duplications, it was found that there are too many duplicates of documents’ title, most of them due to editorial materials or book reviews. This led to a thorough analysis of publication by type of document (eg there are more than 10 reviews for one book or more than 10 editorial materials signed by the same editor). We identified some publications which are irrelevant for the purpose of our analysis. One hundred eighty-six editorial materials without citations and all 286 book reviews were removed resulting 1628 publications. We kept the editorial materials with citation because some of them have more than 100 citations. We searched for anonymous publications, more exactly we looked for incomplete data (author’s name is missing) and we removed 8 documents.

For the remaining documents the "Full Record and Cited References" was downloaded on 13th of October 2022 (txt files) and used as original data for the proposed bibliometrics analysis and science mapping. The final data collection, which consists of 1620 publications, is supported by 16,755 citing articles (excluding self-citations) and has been cited 18,504 times (excluding self-citations), giving it an H-index of 59. The data are statistical analysed by using annual distribution of publications, authors, journals. Co-authorship analysis focuses on collaboration between authors, institutions, and countries. Cited references, cited authors, and cited journal are used in co-citation analyses, and finally, the co-occurrence will integrate keyword in this research.

The graphical representation of selection procedure can be seen in Fig.  1 .

Selection procedure flow chart. Source: Authors

Visualization tools

Bibliometric method needs a certain amount of data to be statistically credible. This is the reason for that computerized data treatment is needed. Moreover, databases contain hundreds or thousands of entries which are analysed by using computer software. There is many bibliometric software, each of them has particularities and weaknesses. CiteSpace was chosen in this study because it is very user friendly, intuitively, and easy to use. CiteSpace 6.1.R2. available for free download at https://citespace.podia.com . A variety of networks created from scientific publications, such as collaboration networks, author co-citation networks, and document co-citation networks, are supported by structural and temporal analysis in CiteSpace. CiteSpace can produce knowledge domain X-rays. The CiteSpace parameters for this investigation were as follows: time-slicing was from 1975 to 2022, years per slice was 1 year, Look Back Years (LBY) = -1, Link Retaining Factor (LRF) = -1. For text processing and links, we preserved the default settings. We used several nodes (authors, institutions, journal, references, keywords) and metrics (such as citation burstiness, Sigma, Silhouette, rad Q, betweenness centrality) depending on the study that was done. Top N% is set to be equal to 100%, Top N is set to be 50, and g-index is set to be 25.

Statistical analysis

The first step to follow in the scient metric analysis is to analyse the evolution of publications’ number in the researched field. The way in which they are distributed over the years indicates the attention that the field of health economics has benefited from and the speed at which its conceptual development took place. The first 3 papers about health economics were published in 1975, indicating the lowest number of annual publications, but also a concept that has existed for over 4 decades. From Fig.  2 , a general upward trend of health economics publications can be observed, but with numerous upward and downward fluctuations, generating sinusoidal cycles with an average duration of 3–4 years. The period 1975 – 1986 is characterized by a very low number of publications, 98 publications written by 110 authors in 12 years, representing 6% of the total sample. The next two decades (1987 – 2006) are characterized by a slightly increasing trend in the number of publications, with an annual average of approximately 23 publications on health economics, reaching a total of 454 publications written by 826 authors and representing 28% of the total number of analysed publications. Cyclical evolution is highlighted by booms in 1987, 1990, 1995, 1999, 2001.

Literature production related to health economics between 1975 and 2022. Source: Authors

The following period, 2007 – 2022 (16 years) is characterized by an upward evolution of the number of health economics publications, 1068 publications with an annual average of 67 articles (3261 authors involved), meaning 2.3 times more numerous as in the previous two decades and representing 66% of the total sample. In 2017, 86 studies on health economics were published, reaching the highest value in the analysed period. The quantitative evolution of publications in health economics it is explained by a higher interest of the researchers and policymakers to explore the benefits of health economics. The need to identify the ways in which health economics contributes to the healthcare system development represent a solid motivation to continue intensive research in the field.

The evolution of the citations’ number follows, like a shadow, the evolution of publications’ number. The upward trend is maintained, also respecting the previously presented temporal distribution, but without cyclical and sinusoidal fluctuations. The evolution of the citations’ number indicates the growing interest of specialists in researching the field, especially after 2000 when a constant and galloping annual increase in citations begins. The last 5 years show a very high interest of researchers and academics in health economics research, with a maximum point in 2021, with over 2000 citations, an evolution argued by the emergence of the global pandemic. All the figures and observations indicate a constant interest in the conceptualization of health economics and foresee a deeper development in the future.

Geographical analysis allows a better understanding of the field. The 1620 publications involved the work of authors from 82 countries. Among them, the first 10 states with significant contributions in the field of health economics stand out: the USA (605 papers), England (400), Canada (115), Australia (103), Netherlands (75), Scotland (64), Germany (59), Switzerland (57), France (47) and Italy (43). 96.8% of all publications were produced by top-10 countries. According to statistics, the USA is the top nation. 37% of all analysed documents are written by American authors, which is 1.5 times more than values recorded by England (rank 2) and 5.2 times more than Canada, rank 3. There are 49 nations where there are fewer than or equal to 5 publications during entire period.

In our study, a sum of 4096 different authors were identified, and they individually published between one and 16 papers, but only 170 persons are co-authors of more than 3 papers. Table 1 lists the top 10 authors with publications about health economics. Drummond M.F. is the leader, even if he published Essentials of Health Economics with his co-author, Mooney G.H., in 1982. He is affiliated to University of Yor (the UK). The top ten most productive authors published 107 articles, which represents 6.6% of the total publications. The most authors (95.8% of all authors) contributed to the health economics research with less than two papers. It should be noted that the number of authors is 2.5 times over the number of papers., which means that publications are made by cooperation between researchers.

From the point of view of affiliation, the 4096 authors belong to 1723 institutions. The top 10 organizations with many health economics articles are University of London (91 publications), University of California System (54), University of York (51), Harvard University (45), University of Birmingham (41), University of Pennsylvania (34), University of Oxford (30), University of Aberdeen (28), University of California Los Angeles (28) and University of Washington (28). The list is dominated by institutions from the UK and the USA. The top-10 institutions contributed to health economics research field by 230 papers which represents 26.5% of total publications.

It is very important to see which journals have published the most articles about health economics. Regarding the publication’s titles, 847 distinct journals published all 1620 documents related to health economics. It should be mentioned that 782 journals (92.3%) published from one to three articles on health economics during 1975 – 2022. Table 2 lists the top 10 most prolific journals, and together they have published 364 articles, which means 43% of all publications in the sample. The leading journal is the Value in Health (Impact Factor = 5.156) with 160 papers meaning 9.8% of all publications from the sample.

Co-authorship analysis

Co-authorship networks and social network analysis are becoming more and more effective techniques for evaluating collaboration patterns and locating top scientists and institutions [ 26 ]. The author collaboration network can help identify authors with high contributions and reveal the co-operative relationships between the authors. By using CiteSpace, the co-authorship network was created without pruning the sliced networks. Co-authors network has 1028 nodes and 1166 links. Figure  3 presents the network between the most collaborative authors in health economics, all of them published 4 or more publications as co-authors. As indicated by the node name, each node represents a different author, and the font size corresponds to the number of publications for each author. The connections made by the co-authorship of researchers are represented by the interconnections between each pair of nodes. The degree of cooperation between the two authors is indicated by the thickness of the link.

The network of authors’ collaboration in health economics. Source: Authors

Co-authors’ map shows that there are not strong collaboration relationships between authors, the network density level is 0.0022. Moreover, they are divided in small research groups and cooperation for research in health economics is insignificant. Top five collaborative authors are Drummond M. (20 publications), Mooney G. (16), Trosch R. (8), Marchese D. (8) and Fuchs V. (8). They are followed by Basu A. (7), Edwards R. (7), Coast J. (7), Peeples P. (7) and Comella C. (6).

In Fig.  3 it can be seen the cooperation between two research teams. These research teams are formed around key authors in health economics and integrated as most collaborative ones. First research team is created around Drummond M. and Mooney G. They published in 1982 and 1983, in British Medical Journal, 9 papers about different aspects of health economics [ 27 , 28 ]. The second research team is created around Trosch R. and Marchese D., who participated between 2012 and 2015 at several annual meeting, conferences, and congresses to present their work about clinical and health economics outcomes registry in cervical dystonia [ 29 , 30 ]. There are 72 scholars as co-authors in at least 3 publications showing a weak cooperation in health economics. From the perspective of citation burst, there are 5 bursting authors with a burst duration between 2 and 8 years: Drummond M. 1981–1999, Mooney G. 1982–1986, Marchese D. 2012–2015, Trosch R. 2012–2015, and Peeples P. 2018–2020. Bust analysis confirms the existence of the two research teams and their period of activity.

We continue exploring the co-authorship analysis by studying the level of cooperation between institutions. For this purpose, we generated a network where the nodes are the institutions, and we did not used pruning methods. The level of cooperation is revealed by the thickness between institutions’ nodes. The network contains 751 nodes, 944 links, and a density of 0.0034. In Fig.  4 are labelled the institutions with more than 4 collaborative papers, the label size is depending on the number of collaborative publications. No institution has a large value of centrality, meaning that cooperation among the analysed institutions is weak, the links are very transparent because of an insignificant number of publications written by collaboration between organizations or universities.

The network of institutions’ collaboration in health economics. Source: Authors

As seen in Fig.  4 , the top-10 most collaborative institutions in health economics area are: University of York (28 publications), University of Oxford (23), University of Pennsylvania (21), University of Washington (20), University of Birmingham (17), Erasmus University (16), Harvard University (16), Bangor University (15), University of California Los Angeles (13) and University of Toronto (12). There are six institutions for which there was identified citation burst as follows: University of Oxford 2016–2020, University of Pennsylvania 2017–2022, University California Los Angeles 2013–2016, King’s College London 2006–2011, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine 2008–2010, University of Washington 2015–2018. Cooperation among institutions is depending on cooperation among authors. It is understood that poor collaboration at the individual level is followed by an identical one at the organizational level.

Progress in any field can be achieved only by communication. Analysing country co-authorship may lead to identification of leading states in health economics research. The visualisation map for country collaboration reveals a network of 202 nodes, 710 links and 0.035 density. It should be noted that country co-authorship network has a density 10 times larger than institutions co-authorship network. The map was generated in CiteSpace without pruning parameter. In Fig.  5 are displayed the countries having more than 5 collaborative health economics-related publications.

The network of countries’ collaboration in health economics. Source: Authors

As can be observed, the biggest nodes correspond to the most prominent and cooperative nations. The collaboration between institutions from these nations is shown by the links between the nodes. The discrepancies between the first two countries and the other states are obvious. The network of the most collaborative country, the USA, consist in 521 publications. It is followed by England with 344 publications. It is obvious that these two nations played a crucial part in worldwide academic exchanges in health economics area. The third and the fourth most collaborative countries are Canada (105 publications) and Australia (100 publications), which shows a degree of cooperation 5 times lower than that of the leading country. The top-10 most collaborative countries continue with the following nations: Netherlands (74 publications), Germany (58), Switzerland (56), Scotland (48), France (46) and Italy (43). Citation burst was identified for 4 countries: the USA 1975–1981, Scotland 1982–2003, Switzerland 1999–2006, and China 2020–2022. Citation burst analysis reveals that China, which stated to published research in health economics in 2006, faces an upward trend in the last two years.

Co-citations analysis

The following step of our current analysis is to find the most frequently cited publications in health economics sector. Co-citation reference analysis help to identification of the most important references in health economics. 16,755 references are linked to our sample. We obtain a co-citation network of 1550 nodes and 7240 links with a density of 0.0060. The network map was obtained without pruning parameter. In Fig.  6 are labelled the papers with more than 5 co-citations. Table 3 lists the top 10 articles in the field of health economics by the number of citations.

Visualization of reference co-citation networks for health economics research. Source: Authors

As we expected, the most influential paper is published by Arrow K.J. in 1963. In his paper, the author investigates and studies the unique distinctions between medical care and other goods and services in normative economics. He focuses on medical-care industry and its efficacy by rethinking the industry from economics perspective. This publication is the basic brick in the conceptualization of health economics. Unfortunately, this part of analysis reveals some basic limitation in bibliometric analysis: incomplete and compromised database because of incorrect data filled by authors. As it can be seen in Fig.  6 , the second most influential paper belongs to an anonymous author who wrote in 1996 a paper about cost effectiveness. A manual search in references database revealed the possibility to correlate the anonymous publications to a book written by Gold M.R., Siegel J.E., Russell L.B. and Weinstein M.C. The authors published in 1996 a book about cost effectiveness in health and medicine and there are several book reviews about it. The third and the fourth most co-cited publications are signed by Drummond M.F. and his co-authors. In fact, it is about a book entitled “Methods for the Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes”, first published in 1987 at and then renewed in the following editions: 1997 (2nd), 2005 (3rd) and 2015 (4th). Regardless the edition number, the book is a worldwide bestseller and it very cited in health economics research. It should be mentioned that the 2nd edition of the book appears twice in the database because some authors incorrectly cited Drummond. There are many book reviews for this book because it describes techniques and tools for evaluation of health care programs. It provides syntheses of new and emerging methodologies, and it is less concerned with the theoretical and ethical foundations of the methodologies (Drummond M.F et all, 2005). The book promotes basic health economic concepts and theories.

The citation burst was checked to see the period when a document citation increases sharply in frequency. There are 12 cited papers with citation burst fluctuating from 3.95 for Volpp K.G (2008) and 9.58 for Arrow K.J. (1963). Ten of twelve papers with citation burst are the ones from Table 3 , the most co-cited documents in health economics. The top-10 papers by burst are Arrow K.J. 1963 (period 2012–2018, citation burst 9.58), Drummond M.F. 1997 (2000–2008, 8.76), Anonymous 1996 (1999–2011, 8.86), Drummond M.F 2005 (2008 – 2019, 8.42), Kahneman D. 2011 (2013–2022, 5.03), Williams A. 1985 (1986–1998, 4.44), Lakdawalla (2018–2022, 4.44), Kahneman D. 1979 (2019–2022, 4.38) and Grossman M. 1972 (2016–2019, 4.35).

Two of Kahneman D.’s works stands out. One of them is represented by a book, another worldwide bestseller, entitled “Thinking, Fast and Slow” published in 2011 in London. His psychological book is appreciated because it aids in the public understanding of issues related to engineering, medicine, and behavioural science. The second paper is written by Kahneman D. and Tversky A. in 1979 and presents opponents of the anticipated utility theory as a framework for risky decision-making and introduces an alternative model called prospect theory.

We can find highly cited authors whose work is well known in the health economics research community by using author co-citation networks. CiteSpace configurations are the same. The network of co-cited writers has 1422 nodes, 12,462 linkages, with a density of 0.0123. The node size reflects the number of co-citations by author. In Fig.  7 the nodes with co-citations over 14 are labelled by the corresponding first author. Once again there are incomplete data in the database. We face with an anonymous person as the most cited author in health economics research. This author without name was 300 time co-cited. We manually checked the database to find additional information about this anonymous author. According to the findings we assume it is about Margolis H. who published in 1982 a book about selfishness, altruism, and rationality. Margolis H. is a professor at the University of Chicago and in his book about social choice propose and argue a distinction between self-interest and group-interest for a person, and he also develop an equilibrium model for his theory [ 41 ].

Visualization of authors co-citation networks for health economics research. Source: Authors

Drummond M.F. is on the second position, positioning himself with two publications in the top-10 most co-cited authors. Once again it is about his publication with Mooney G.H. about Essentials in Health Economics which was already mentioned in the paper. Williams A. is the third co-cited author, followed by Culyer A.J and Arrow K.J. It should be noted that World Health Organization’s (WHO) publications are ones of the most co-cited document in health economics research. Unfortunately, it is hard to identify the titles of WHO’s publications from 1993 and 2009 (see Table 4 ) because there is more than one publication per year for this international organization. However, we assume that it is about an anonymous publication focused on tuberculosis as a worldwide problem [ 42 ] (published in 1993) and a publication about health risk at the global level [ 43 ] (published in 2009).

There are no scholars who have a betweenness centrality greater than zero. This indicates that there is no author more influential than other scholars, and no one exert a significant influence on the evolution of health economics research. The evolution of health economics theory was influenced by all the authors discussed in this paper.

In terms of burstiness, there are 35 cited authors with citation burst between 9.26 and 3.90. It means that their papers were intensively cited during a specific period. The top-10 cited authors by bursts is Drummond M. 1988 (bursts of 9.26, period 1995–1999), Maynard A, 1982 (8.60, 1998–2003), WHO 2009 (8.09, 2009–2015), OECD 2013 (7.77, 2013–2022), Williams A. 1982 (7.63, 1986–2003), Johannesson M. 1996 (7.59, 1996–2003), Kahneman D. 2000 (7.55, 2016–2022), WHO 1993 (7.02, 2011–2022), Cutler D.M. 2007 (6.97, 2012–2016) and Donaldson C. 1995 (6.94, 1995–2003). Even if they are not included in the previous ranking, the following cited authors should be mentioned because their burstiness periods exceeds 10 years: Fuchs V.R. 21 years (bursts of 4.54, period 1977–1998), Williams A. 17 years (7.63, 1986–2003), Mooney G. 14 years (5.29, 1995–2009), Dolan P. 14 years (4.84, 2003–2017) and Weinstein M.C. 13 years (4.14, 1999–2011).

The same way as previous maps, the cited journal visualization map for health economics research (Fig.  8 ) was created in CiteSpace, but this network has 1273 nodes (cited journals), 25,008 linkages, and a density of 0.0309. The cited journals with more than 38 citations are labelled in the network.

Journal co-citation network visualization for health economics research. Source: Authors

The top ten journals by citations in health economics are presented in Table 5 . The BMJ – British Medical Journal (381 citations) is the journal published by British Medical Association and the most prominent cited journal in health economics area. It is followed by the New England Journal of Medicine (306 citations) and The Lancet (257 citations). The journal published by American Medicinal Association ranks on the fourth place. A journal that receives a lot of citations and has a high citation burstiness score has garnered the interest of academics recently.

The citation surge affects 70 cited journals. The cited journal with the strongest citation bursts is Plos One (21.79, 2014–2022), which is not the most cited one. It is followed by British Medical Journal (20.22, 1982–2006), Value Health (13.15, 2018–2022), BMJ Open (12.48, 2017–2022), Applied Health Economics and Health Policy (10.38, 2017–2022), BMC Health Services Research (10.16, 2019–2022), Frontiers in Public Health (9.99, 2020–2022), Cost Effectiveness and Resource Allocation (9.66, 1998–2005), JAMA Internal Medicine (9.24, 2019–2022) and BMC Public Health (8.71, 2016–2022). It should be noted that 8 cited journals of the ranking are bursting to the present. British Medical Journal (24 years), American Journal of Psychiatry (15 years), The Journal of Health Services Research and Policy (14 years), The New England Journal of Medicine (13 years) and Medical Care (12 years) are the cited journals with the longest periods of bursting, even if the interest in these journals is currently low. It must be added that four of the most cited journals in health economics research are on a top-10 list of journals with the highest JIF in 2021. All these journals are one of the most influential journals in health research.

Co-occurrence analysis

In this section of the analysis, we can pinpoint the key ideas and areas of interest in health economics research. To discover the primary study subjects in many scientific research domains, keywords are generally regarded as one of the most crucial elements of any research paper [ 44 ]. Co-occurrence analysis is used to identify the conceptual structure of the field. Without any pruning, the network of related keywords is shown in Fig.  9 . The network of co-occurred keyword has 694 nodes (keywords), 2823 links (connections), and a density of 0.0117. One percent of all keywords, those with a frequency greater than or equal to five, are labelled.

Keywords co-occurrence network for health economics research. Source: Authors

Table 6 presents the top 30 keywords which are used and connected in the 1620 analysed papers. “Health economics” and “cost effectiveness” are the most co-occurred items in health economics research, they have been connected for 121 times. “Care” follows them as the second high-count keyword with a frequency of 115. One crucial statistic used in the analysis of the keyword co-occurrence network is centrality. Centrality shows a keyword's strength, influence, or other specific characteristics. In this analysis all the keywords have a null betweenness centrality.

By using bursts detection, we tried to identify research hotspots in health economics. Surprisingly, there are only two keywords with citation bursts during 1975–2022: “behavioural economics” and “economic evaluation”. The keyword with the strongest bursts is “behavioural economics” (5.57) and it caught scholars’ attention between 2019 and 2022. The second keyword by citation bursts is “economic evaluation” (4.62). This item is bursting from 2020 to 2022. It can be observed that both research themes have short periods of bursts, and they continue bursting to present.

CiteSpace allows a cluster analysis of keywords to identify topics that have captured the attention of researchers. By applying clustering tool, the keywords network has been divided in 14 clusters, labelled by keywords. Table 7 presents the top 10 keywords clusters, in descending order of their size, and the most used keywords in the analysed sample of publications. There are 14 clusters with different sizes, from 80 research topics in health economics to 4 research topics. Their Silhouette values varies from 0.757 to 0.995 which means that keywords match well to their own cluster. Figure  10 show that the clustering configuration is appropriate.

Keywords clusters. Source: Authors

The largest cluster (#0) is labelled “Health economics” and has 80 components. It contains publications about health economics, cost effectiveness, quality of life, and management. Cost effectiveness analysis and health technology assessment are subjects in the second largest cluster (#1). It is labelled “Value framework” and has 78 topics. The third cluster (#2) “Economic evaluation” contains 75 topics and the most important are care, economic evaluation, outcome, and benefits. Other research topics refer to behavioural economics, demand, cost, quality of life, risk, cancer, public heath, financial incentives, therapy, etc.

The evolution over time of the keywords can be seen in Fig.  11 , structured by cluster. CiteSpace restricts the time pane analyses to the period 1990 – 2022. Figures  11 and 12 present how interest of researchers in health economics has evolved over time. In Fig.  12 are labelled the keywords with a frequency larger than 10. In the 1990s the hot topics of research in health economics were “care”, “impact”, “health economics”, “cost”, “cost effectiveness”, “quality of life”, “outcome”, “economic evaluation”. The most debated research topics in the 2000s were “children”, “air pollution”, “patient”, “management”, “people”, “public health”, “choice”, “therapy and “risk”. In the 2010s focus is on “behavioural economics”, “population”, “obesity”, “uncertainty”, “ technology”, “health policy”, “health system”. How future research in health economics looks? It cannot be estimated with certainty, but some directions are drawn as follows: “inequality”, “care expenditure”, “health technologies”, “analysis plan”, “adaptative design”, “transparency”, “biodiversity”. These topics may shape the future literature in health economics.

Timeline view of keywords clusters in health economics between 1990 and 2022. Source: Authors

Time zone view of keywords clusters in health economics between 1990 and 2022. Source: Authors

The performed literature analysis enables us to respond to the research queries that were addressed in the paper's introduction, as follows:

How scientific production has evolved in health economics?

It can be observed a general upward trend of health economics publications, but with numerous upward and downward fluctuations, generating sinusoidal cycles with an average duration of 3–4 years. The period 1975 – 1986 is characterized by a very low number of publications. The next two decades (1987 – 2006) are characterized by a slightly increasing trend in the number of publications, with an annual average of approximately 23 publications on health economics. The following period, 2007 – 2022 is characterized by an upward evolution of the number of health economics publications, 1068 publications with an annual average of 67 articles. The evolution of the citations’ number indicates the growing interest of specialists in researching the field, especially after 2000 when a constant and galloping annual increase in citations begins. The last 5 years show a very high interest of researchers and academics in health economics research, which is justified by the existence of worldwide Covid pandemic period.

Who are the most important authors and publications in health economics?

In our study, 4096 different authors were identified, and they individually published between one and 16 papers. Among the most important authors in health economics are Drummond M.F., Jonsson B., Coast J., Donaldson C. and Edwards R.T. Regarding the publication’s titles, 847 distinct journals published all 1620 documents related to health economics. Value Health, Health Economics, British Medical Journal, Pharmacoeconomics and Health Policy are among journals with high interest in health economics publications.

What are the geographical and institutional hubs of knowledge production in health economics?

The analysed publications involved the work of authors from 82 countries. The states with significant contributions in the field of health economics are the USA, England, Canada, Australia, and Netherlands. From the point of view of affiliation, the authors belong to 1723 institutions. The institutions with a high number of publications about health economics are University of London, University of California System, University of York, Harvard University and University of Birmingham.

What kind of collaboration between authors, organizations, and nations are there in the field of health economics research?

There are not strong collaboration relationships between authors. They are divided in small research groups and cooperation for research in health economics is insignificant. The most collaborative authors are Drummond M., Mooney G., Trosch R., Marchese D., and Fuchs V. There are two research teams created around Drummond M. and Mooney G., on the one hand, and around Trosch R. and Marchese D., on the other hand. Cooperation among institutions is depending on cooperation among authors. It is understood that poor collaboration at the individual level is followed by an identical one at the organizational level. The most collaborative institutions in health economics area are University of York, University of Oxford, University of Pennsylvania, University of Washington, and University of Birmingham. Regarding collaboration between countries, the USA and England played a key role in worldwide academic exchanges in health economics area, followed by Canada, Australia, and Netherlands.

Which are the most cited authors and the most cited papers, and which are the most attractive journals for publishing research results in health economics?

The most influential paper is published by Arrow K.J. in 1963, entitled “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care”. The second most influential paper belongs to an anonymous author who wrote in 1996 a paper about cost effectiveness. We assume that is a book written by Gold M.R., Siegel J.E., Russell L.B. and Weinstein M.C., entitled “Cost-Effectiveness in Health and Medicine”. The third and the fourth most cited publications are signed by Drummond M.F. and his co-authors. In fact, it is about a book entitled “Methods for the Economic Evaluation of Health Care Programmes”, first published in 1987 at and then renewed in several editions. Another influential book was written by Kahneman D., entitled “Thinking, Fast and Slow” and published in 2011. The most cited author is Margolis H., who published in 1982 a book about “Selfishness, Altruism, and Rationality”. Drummond M.F. is on the second position with the publications about “Essentials in Health Economics”. Williams A. is the third cited author, followed by Culyer A.J and Arrow K.J. It should be noted that World Health Organization’s (WHO) publications are ones of the most cited document in health economics research. The most cited journals in health economics are The BMJ – British Medical Journal, The New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Journal of American Medicinal Association and Health Economics. Beside them, other very influential journals are Plos One, Value Health, BMJ Open, Applied Health Economics and Health Policy and BMC Health Services Research.

What are the most debated conceptual approaches in health economics?

“Health economics”, “cost effectiveness” and “care” are the most debated concepts in health economics. But the current research hotspots in health economics are “behavioural economics” and “economic evaluation”.

Discussions and conclusions

The current bibliographic analysis was done for a specialized literature: health economics. This analysis contributes to the evaluation of the progress of the global knowledge in health economics and to the evaluation of the interest in health economics research. Moreover, the research allows the identification of the authors who contributed to the theoretical conceptualization of health economics, but also the identification of the most cited works in the field. A bibliometric analysis of the health economics research topic was produced, based on 1620 papers that were published between 1975 and 2021 and indexed in WoS. According to the tables and figures above, we have identified the important authors, publications, nations, organizations, keywords, and references.

By giving information on the current state of the art and identifying trends and research possibilities through the selection and analysis of the most pertinent publications published in the subject of health economics, the current study completes the body of existing research.

Through an extensive field mapping, the study increases the added value for the study of health economics theory. The development patterns of health economics are described by identifying trends in research production in that field and the most productive nations. The identification of top contributors’ points to possible collaborators (universities and researchers) for additional research projects. Finding the most appealing source names reveals publishing prospects for health economics-related articles. Leading thematic areas and developing research areas can be found to help academics identify research gaps in health economics.

Limitations and future research directions

Even though the bibliometric analysis and mapping visualization on articles relevant to health economics in the current research have produced numerous fascinating results, this methodology has several drawbacks. These limitations are due to the bibliometric analysis and quality of database. A quantitative analysis reduces the influence of subjective judgments. In several parts of the analysis, we were forces to use manual search because of inadequate or incomplete data. Maybe, manual analysis is required to learn additional specifics about different aspects of health economics theory by using a systematic review analysis.

The following limitations of the current study should be considered. First, the search strategy leads to a lost in publications which do not contain the query word in the publication title. Therefore, the main findings should be interpreted in accordance with the selection strategy used in this paper. The dataset is downloaded only from WoS, maybe multi-source searching is more convincing. Publications in other languages were not analysed. For some publications the name of author was missing. Some journals change their title in time, and they appear twice as being different journals. In this analysis it was used an inhomogeneous sample due to the type of publications.

Therefore, these restrictions remain issues that need to be resolved in additional research. To sum up, our analysis cannot cover every crucial publication concerning health economics, but we believe that the results allow us to have reliable insight into the knowledge domain. This study could be carried out in the future utilizing new search criteria, time periods, or bibliometric analytic parameters.

Availability of data and materials

The data can be extracted from Web of Science. All data are available upon application.

Abbreviations

European Union

Gross Domestic Product

Journal Impact Factor

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

Science Citation Index Expanded

Social Science Citation Index

The United Kingdom

The United States of America

World Health Organization

Web of Science

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Acknowledgements

Project financed by Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu through the research grant LBUS-IRG-2022-08.

This study was fund by Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu through the research grant LBUS-IRG-2022–08.

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Barbu, L. Global trends in the scientific research of the health economics: a bibliometric analysis from 1975 to 2022. Health Econ Rev 13 , 31 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13561-023-00446-7

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1186/s13561-023-00446-7

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130 Excellent Economics Research Topics To Consider

Table of Contents

Are you an economics student searching for good topics for your research paper? If yes, then keep on reading this blog. To make the topic selection process easier for you, here we have suggested a list of the best economics research topics on various areas associated with the subject. In addition to that, we have also presented a brief overview of economics research paper topic selection and writing.

Quickly explore the entire list and choose any ideal topic for composing your economics thesis or dissertation.

Economics Research Paper Topic Selection and Writing

Have your professor asked you to submit an economics research paper? If yes, then topic selection is the first step you should do. In case, your supervisors had not suggested any research ideas, make sure to choose a unique economics research topic that you are interested in. The topic you choose should be understandable for you and your readers, and it should also have a wide research scope with the necessary information for crafting a comprehensive research paper or essay.

After you have selected a research topic for your economics assignment, sketch an outline with the research ideas that you have gathered. Then, with the help of the essay outline you have prepared, draft the research paper in a well-structured manner by including the essential elements such as the introduction, body, and conclusion.

The introduction paragraph of your research paper should have a catchy opening sentence, brief background information on the topic, and a strong thesis statement addressing the purpose of your research paper. After the introduction, in the body paragraphs, you should include innovative topic sentences and explain your arguments with supporting evidence in a way to persuade your reader. Then, you should finally close your research paper with an engaging conclusion that contains a brief summary of the main points.

List of the Best Economics Research Paper Topics

You may think that it is easy to choose a research topic for your economics research paper. But actually, it is not. As economics is a complex and broad subject, choosing a perfect research topic from it is a daunting task.

If you are asked to write an economics research paper or essay, then you can prefer to choose a topic from economics research areas such as macroeconomics, microeconomics, behavioral economics, agricultural economics, development economics, financial economics, and so on.

Here, we have sorted different categories of economics topics and have recommended a list of excellent economics research topic ideas for you to consider. Go through the entire list and pick a topic that is ideal for writing academic papers as per your instructor’s requirements.

Agricultural Economics Research Topics

• Farmer’s contribution to agricultural social capital.
• Agricultural economics and agribusiness.
• An analysis of economic efficiency in agriculture.
• Agricultural and resource economics.
• Agricultural economics and environmental considerations of biofuels.
• Analysis of food security and poverty status among households in Ehime Mbano
• Role of bank loans and credit facility in financing Nigerian agriculture sector: a case study of Nigeria agricultural cooperative and rural development bank
• Evaluation of the impact of micro-finance banks on the South African agriculture sector
• How poultry farming is becoming a veritable tool for the economic empowerment of South Africa?
• Critical analysis of the problems and prospects of agriculture financing in rural India

Behavioral Economics Research Paper Topics

• What does the economy of trust mean?
• How does the brain change when a person is striking a great deal?
• The impact of economic stability on the social life of a person
• The buying capacity and gender
• How does race relate to economic power?
• Big data and its implications for behavioral economics
• The impact of behavioral finance on investment decisions.
• Cognitive and behavioral theories in economics.
• Behavior implications of wealth and inequality.
• Using behavioral economics to help in reducing substance abuse

Development Economics Research Topics

• The relation between development and incentive for migration.
• The economic consequences of population growth in developing countries.
• The determinants of high-performing institutions in emerging economies
• The impact of globalization on income distribution in emerging economies
• The problems of tax and taxation in connection with economic growth.
• The economic impact of terrorism on developing markets.
• Investigate the relationship between family planning, labor force, and income fluctuations.
• The impact of natural disasters on the economy and political stability of emerging markets.
• Budgeting and decision-making by low-income earners in emerging economics
• The impact of multinational commodity trading through the development of economic perspective.
• Compare and contrast the impact of demand-pull inflation and cost-push inflation on a country’s economy
• Discuss the impact of multinational commodity trading through the perspective of development economics
• Discuss the concepts of mercantilism, linear stages of growth model, economic nationalism, and structural-change theory
• Investigate the relationship between unemployment and fluctuations in national income
• Compare and contrast the economic patterns of villages across Papua New Guinea

Environmental Economics Research Paper Topics

• Explain the energy markets’ economic potential.
• How does global warming affect economic growth?
• How technological advancement leads to economic growth
• Evolution of economic institutions concerning climate change
• Cost-benefit analysis of the regulation of the environment
• The economic perspectives of the distribution of natural resources across boundaries
• The relationship between financial subsidies and the generation of eco-friendly products
• Detailed analysis of the European Union Emission Trading System
• Why it’s important to analyze the economics of clean drinking water
• How wildlife protection affects the economy

Read more: Outstanding Environmental Science Topics for You to Consider

Financial Economics Research Topics

• Risk-taking by mutual funds as a response to incentives.
• Financial economics for infrastructure and fiscal policy.
• Managerial economics and financial accounting as a basis for business
• The analysis of the global financial crisis of 2020
• Stock market overreaction.

Health Economics Research Ideas

• How do chronic diseases affect the workforce and the economy?
• How can public hospitals optimize their revenue collection?
• The economics of the pharmaceutical industry
• How an unhealthy country translates into a poor country
• Is the world’s hunger affected by economics?
• How does perfect competition work in the pharmaceutical world?
• How does an infectious disease outbreak affect the economy?
• Is health insurance important?
• How is the economy affected by a smoking ban?

Research Paper Topics on International Trade

• What are the gains and losses of international trade for developing countries?
• The importance of international trade in developing countries
• The relationship between economic growth and international trade
• The impact of Brexit on small and middle businesses in the UK
• To what extent does a currency union affect trade?
• The roles of exchange rate and exchange rate regime in the US export.
• To what extent are the gains of less developed countries from trade liberalization exaggerated?
• Foreign direct investment in the United States: Determinants and impact
• The relationship between foreign direct investment and wages
• The effects of the banana crisis on the Jamaican and British economies

Macroeconomics Research Topics

• Global recession and factors that contribute to it.
• The relationship between Internet connectivity and productivity in the workplace.
• The relationship between economic growth and unemployment in your country.
• Income Dynamics and demographic economics.
• What should our government do to minimize the risks of future default?
• The connection between politics and economics.
• The world problems through macroeconomic analysis .
• US Market Liquidity and Macroeconomics.
• The structure, history, and activities of the World Bank.
• Economics of education in developing markets.
• Public policies and socio-economic disparities.
• Banks and their role in the economy.
• Problems and possible solutions for Japan macroeconomics.
• State regulation of the economy in foreign countries: main models of regulation.
• The effect of currency devaluation on small and medium firms
• A comparison of the United States unemployment to the rest of the world
• The relationship between common stock prices and inflation in your country.
• Macroeconomics and self-correction of the economy.
• Analysis of Africa’s macroeconomics and its performance.
• The implications of Internet banking on bank profitability.

Read more: Best Macroeconomics Research Topics and Ideas for Students

Microeconomics Research Topics

• Explain how competition influences the price.
• Opportunity costs explained from a microeconomics perspective
• Inflation sources and consequences explained
• The impact of demonetization on small and medium businesses
• The connection between the minimum wage and market equilibrium.
• Perfect competition in microeconomics
• Theories in microeconomics
• The effect of labor force participation on the economy and budget
• Economic inequality as a result of globalization.
• Explain the balance between supply and demand in microeconomics
• Dynamics of the Gini index as a reflection of the problem of inequality in income
• Privatization of Public Enterprises and its implications on economic policy and development
• How does the stock market work?
• The impact of game theory on economic development.
• The changes in oil prices: causes and solutions.
• Marketing uses in microeconomics.
• The economic explanation of political dishonesty.
• How company mergers and dissolutions impact the economy
• The role of tax collection agencies in microeconomics
• Different microeconomic models and how they face the effect of industry conditions

A Few More Microeconomics Research Ideas

• How exactly does Uber fit into the economy of trust?
• How does a person’s brain alter when they hit a big deal?
• missing practical human insights from big data and how this affects the economy.
• explaining how supply and demand are balanced in microeconomics
• Changes in economic institutions with regard to climate change
• Effects of greenhouses on economic growth
• Effects of climate change on economic growth
• Analysis of the European Union Emission Trading System in great detail
• Is resource management for waste scarce? A microeconomics explanation of opportunity costs
• Effects of wildlife protection on the economy

Interesting Economics Research Topics

• What role does entrepreneurship play in economic development?
• How do automation and artificial intelligence affect the labor market?
• Discuss the Economics of healthcare systems and policies in developing countries.
• Explain the effects of trade agreements on income distribution.
• How does foreign aid affect economic development?
• Explain the impact of monetary policy on financial markets and inflation.
• Discuss the effects of income inequality on social mobility.
• How does tax reform impact business investment?
• Explain the role of microfinance in alleviating poverty.
• How does behavioral economics impact personal savings habits?

From the list of economics research topics recommended in this blog, choose any topic of your choice and craft a top-quality research paper or essay. It is not necessary that you need to use the suggested topic as it is, you can also modify the research topic and write your academic paper. In case, you are unsure how to select the right topic and write a persuasive economics research paper, get in touch with us immediately.

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Winners of the 2024 economics short paper competition announced

Students competed to win up to $300 and have their work published.

This spring, students had the opportunity to participate in the second annual short paper competition sponsored by the Department of Economics. Eight economics students received cash prizes and had their work published in an ASU student-run journal.

Kelvin Wong , clinical associate professor and executive director of undergraduate programs in the Department of Economics, says this year's contest was another success.

“All of the papers submitted (not just those that won) were quite good,” Wong says. “Our hope through this contest was to help students see that economics is applicable everywhere, and I think the breadth of topics and papers show that.”

Winning entries were published by the Economics Review at ASU , a peer-reviewed undergraduate economics publication, and can be found here .

There were two divisions for submissions. Division A included students who had only taken introductory economics courses. Division B included students who had completed the intermediate microeconomics course (ECN312).

Division A winners:

• Catherine Jiang
• Peyton Jergenson
• Anushayana Pant
• Shankar Raman

Division B winners:

• Rachel Etebari
• Abdulaziz Alqurashi
• McKenzie Woodhead

The first prize for each division was $300, the second was $175, the third was $100, and the fourth was $50. Funding for the prizes came from the Centennial Professorship Award that Wong received in 2022.

All submissions were reviewed by the board of the Economics Review at ASU , then by several economics professors, and judged on the quality of their analysis, writing, and originality. Each winner was interviewed to confirm they were familiar with their work to ensure winning papers were not produced with artificial intelligence or paid services.

Many students brought fresh and unique perspectives. "It's great to see students apply economic concepts to many different areas of life,” says Wong.

Below, each winner shares key takeaways from the competition:

Catherine Jiang : Participating in the Economics Review competition at ASU has been eye-opening. I've always found economics fascinating because of its relevance to our daily lives. But through research, writing, and editing, I've gained a deeper understanding of the complexity of economic issues and their effects on the real world. The best part about it: being part of a community of students who share my passion for economics. This experience has been inspiring and fulfilling, and I'm extremely grateful for this opportunity made possible by the exceptional economics professors and the Economics Review faculty.

Peyton Jergenson : Exploring the implications of the supply and demand of student housing and costs, highlighted the importance of the need for more affordable and financially sustainable housing options on and around campus. My research is derived from my experience trying to find affordable housing near campus while attending school. I hope my piece will encourage students, ASU, ASU partners, and surrounding off-campus housing to develop more affordable and sustainable housing opportunities and draw connections to how it not only leaves students extremely cost-burdened but how it also affects overall well-being, education, and enrollment rates, and the community as a whole.

Anushayana Pant : Writing the article "The Ripple Effect: Understanding Interest Rates' Impact on the Property Market" has been a new experience for me. As I delved into how fluctuations in interest rates throughout 2023 influenced the housing market, I gained a deeper understanding of this side of economics. The project connected me with the stories of people trying to buy homes in a shifting financial landscape, which made the abstract principles of economics feel incredibly real and immediate. This process not only fueled my passion for economics but also made me more empathetic toward those facing tough decisions about homeownership. Personally, the research and writing were both challenging and immensely satisfying, gaining more in-depth knowledge of the housing market.

Shankar Srinivasan Raman : Writing this paper was an experience that gave me valuable insight into the world of economic reports. I have always had a keen interest in economic theory, and thanks to my dad, I have developed an interest in electricity pricing. The ideas I have learned in my classes so far have assisted in my understanding of energy markets, which relies heavily on the fundamental principles of economics. I had a great time putting this paper together, and I am excited to do more economic research in the future.

Rachel Etebari : This was my first experience researching and writing about an economics topic, and the entire process was extremely fun and valuable. I am a pre-medical student, interested in health economics, so I knew I wanted to implement the economic principles that I have learned in the classroom to analyze the effects of a policy on health outcomes. From this process, I have learned that economics is a very versatile academic discipline that allows for in-depth quantitative analysis of situations and policies, and it has solidified my passion for studying economics. Advocating for patient populations is important to me and utilizing economic theory is a great way to reason through how health-related policies affect patients.

Sona Shah : Writing this research paper was a fun and rewarding experience. As I thought about different topics, I tried to find something that interested me and affected many people, which is how I landed on economics in the entertainment industry. This paper significantly deepened my interest in the topic, as it was something I study as much in school. However, I was able to combine the data analytics skills I learned through my degree with the economic concepts I learned through my minor to produce this paper. From finding the data to interpreting it to visualizing it, I went through the process of writing a mini-research paper, and I was able to tell a story about the economics of a powerful artist in the music industry!

Abdulaziz Hassan Alqurashi : Questioning a policy that impacted me directly was the start of the idea. Then, I tried to understand the basis of this policy and the motives behind it. I learned how to abstractly analyze the possible implications and draw connections to economic theories. Working on this paper made me realize the importance of scrutinizing policies that affect my daily life since many are potentially nonsensical.

McKenzie Woodhead : I selected my topic because I had recently completed an internship with the U.S. Department of State Office of Intellectual Property Enforcement, which made me interested in exploring the intellectual property economy. It was really interesting to research how AI disrupts norms in the IP economy and how different groups might be economically affected. In writing, I learned to follow the simple logic of answering the natural next question. I enjoyed following my curiosity in the research process and honing my written communication skills; my enjoyment of the process reinforced my interest in economics communication/journalism

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