From modelmania to datanomics? The rise of mathematical and quantitative methods in three top economics journals

This article investigates the rise of mathematical and quantitative methods in three leading economics journals—American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, and Quarterly Journal of Economics—from 1940 to 2010. We show that the trajectories describing the evolution of mathematical and quantitative methods in these outlets are strikingly similar. Analyzing theoretical and applied research separately, the former follows an inverted-U path while the latter has been growing in importance throughout the period, especially after 1990. Moreover, cointegration methods are used to investigate the existence of a long-term relationship between the time series. Our results suggest that whereas the three journals mutually influenced one another, different dynamics emerge when theoretical and applied research are considered separately.