Presenting data on all full-length articles published in the three top general economics journals for one year in each of the 1960s through 2010s, I analyze how patterns of co-authorship, age structure and methodology have changed, and what the possible causes of these changes may have been. The...

Economists are increasingly turning to the experimental method as a means to estimate causal effects. By using randomization to identify key treatment effects, theories previously viewed as untestable are now scrutinized, efficacy of public policies are now more easily verified, and stakeholders...

Economists are increasingly turning to the experimental method as a means to estimate causal effects. By using randomization to identify key treatment effects, theories previously viewed as untestable are now scrutinized, efficacy of public policies are now more easily verified, and stakeholders...

Standard histories of economics usually treat the "marginal revolution" of the midnineteenth century as both supplanting the "classical" economics of Smith and Ricardo and as advancing the idea of economics as a mathematical science. The marginalists - especially Jevons and Walras - viewed...

In the 1870s and 1880s, the scientist, logician, and pragmatist philosopher Charles S. Peirce possessed an advanced knowledge of mathematical economics, having mastered and criticized Cournot as early as 1871. In 1884 he engaged in a multi-round debate with the editors of The Nation over the...

This paper conducts a systematic comparison of behavioral economics’s challenges to the standard accounts of economic behaviors within three dimensions: under risk, over time and regarding other people. A new perspective on two underlying methodological issues, i.e., interdisciplinarity and...

In 1982 my book Beyond Positivism: Economic Methodology in the Twentieth Century was published. At the 2017 History of Economics society meeting, a session was held to mark the 35th anniversary of that event. Papers by Wade Hands, Kevin Hoover, Tony Lawson, and the trio Peter Boettke, Solomon...

Before the use of mathematics in economics was generalized, mathematical and nonmathematically trained economist lived together. This paper studies this period of cohabitation. By focusing on the communication challenges between these two groups during the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, a watershed...

This article explores Douglass North’s intellectual development as a political economist and an interdisciplinary researcher. Although he was an important figure during the cliometrics revolution, he later grew dissatisfied with the approach and went on to study institutions, helping to...

The analysis of historical natural experiments has profoundly impacted economics research across fields. We trace the development and increasing application of the methodology, both from the perspective of economic historians and from the perspective of economists in other subdisciplines. We...