Which Economies do Economists Study?
13 February 2007 at 12:27 pm Peter G. Klein 1 comment
| Peter Klein |
Michael Robinson, James Hartley, and Patricia Higino Schneider have an interesting paper, “Which Countries Are Studied Most By Economists? An Examination of the Regional Distribution of Economic Research,” in the February 2007 issue of Kyklos (volume 5, number 1). Not surprisingly, bigger and wealthier countries, countries that are more open to outsiders, and countries that make economic data available get the most attention. Other significant predictors of the amount of economic research on a country are tourism receipts, whether English is an official language, and the number of domestic economic research institutions. Parts of Africa get less attention even controlling for these observables.
Organizations and Markets 
1.
spostrel | 13 February 2007 at 6:19 pm
Not a huge shocker. There’s lots of economic activity in places like Congo–mining, for example–but who would believe any data about output, sales, employement, etc? Armed gangs, corrupt officials, and shadowy corporate entities fighting over access to mineral deposits are not too good about reporting their activities. Direct data gathering would be costly and hazardous. There’s one thing we know about empirical economists–if you want to get their attention, give them a good data set that’s accessible..