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THE PLACE OF THE HISTORY OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT IN MAINSTREAM ECONOMICS, 1991–2011, VIEWED THROUGH A BIBLIOGRAPHIC SURVEY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 November 2016

Pedro Garcia Duarte  and
Yann Giraud
Pedro Garcia Duarte*
Affiliation:
University of São Paulo, Economics Department
Yann Giraud*
Affiliation:
University of Cergy-Pontoise / THEMA.
*
‡Correspondence may be addressed either to pgduarte@usp.br or to yann.giraud@u-cergy.fr.
‡Correspondence may be addressed either to pgduarte@usp.br or to yann.giraud@u-cergy.fr.
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Abstract

This paper offers a bibliographic survey of the literature in the history of economic thought (HET) in eight major economics journals, using the JEL classification to retrieve and analyze the relevant literature. Our study shows that, though contributions to HET are still found in top economics journals, the rate of publication of such papers has become increasingly uneven, and the methods and narrative styles they adopt are remote from those used by historians of economics. We show that the widespread idea that historians should address current economists by using their (mostly mathematical) tools and techniques is hardly present in mainstream journals, and discuss the role of editors and editorial boards of the different journals we survey in shaping these changes over time. We conclude that historians should focus on doing good work on their own, rather than try to figure out what the economists’ preferences are, and undertake research accordingly.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 38 , Issue 4 , December 2016 , pp. 431 - 462
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2016 

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Appendix A

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