Business cycles in the economy and in economics: An econometric analysis

It is sometimes pointed out that economic research is prone to move in cycles and react to particular events such as crises and recessions. The present paper analyses this issue through a quantitative analysis by answering two closely related research questions: (1) whether or not there are patterns in the economic literature on business cycles, and (2) whether or not these are correlated with movements in actual economic activity. To tackle these questions, a bibliometric analysis of key terms related to business cycle and crises theory is performed. In a second step, these results are confronted with data on actual economic developments in order to investigate the question of whether or not the theoretical literature follows trends and developments in economic data. Respective time series are detrended by the Kalman filter in order to estimate cycles. To determine the connection between economic activity and developments in the academic literature, a descriptive analysis is scrutinized by Granger causality tests. The paper also includes IRF analysis for quantitative assessment of the effects from economic to bibliometric variables. The results point towards a confirmation of the hypothesis of an effect of business cycles and crises in economic variables on discussions in the literature.