debating'it interdisciplinarity in economics

1
debating.it interdisciplinarity in economics

• Research project interdisciplinary approaches in
  economics (work in progress)
• Lucia Cusmano
• Mariapia Mendola
• Andrea Morrison
• Lorrenzo Zirulia

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debating.it aims objectives

• Motivations
• Conventional wisdom suggests that a certain
  degree of interdisciplinarity is good (since
  econ. phenomena are complex)
• Economics increasingly borrows concepts and tools
  from other disciplines (e.g. psychology,
  physics)
• Aims
• Asses to what extent economics is
  interdisciplinary
• Objectives
• Testing empirically (using citations) the
  presence of interdisciplinarity in top journals
• Discriminate between different ways of being
  interdisciplinary, in terms of
• Intensity quantity of links with other
  disciplines
• Directions quality of links with other
  disciplines

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debating.it methodology 1

• Empirical analysis
• bibliometric methodology
• Interdisciplinarity
• articles having references that appeared in
  non-economics subjects
• Sample
• Top four journals (AER, JPE, JET, QJE) year 2002
• Unit of analysis
• articles (50)
• Classification sources
• Journals ISI classification
• Books British library classification
• Other (WP, reports, mimeo)

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debating.it methodology 2

• Meaures of interdisciplinarity
• Intensity
• of non economics citations appearing in
  articles
• Directions
• Scope in disciplines spectrum (based on ISI)
• Economics
• Businessfinance
• Quantitative methods
• Different areas of social sciences (e.g. history,
  sociology)
• Economics 1/2/3 other disciplines (e.g.
  Behavioural Economics)
• Other sciences
• Use of non-economics references
• Motivational rethoric
• Supporting data evidence
• Argumentative core

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debating.it results 1

• Typologies of interdisciplinarity (sample
  results)
• Autisticalmost only economics
• Autistic extended econq.methods
• Rethoric inderdisc. using other disciplines for
  motivational and data supporting purposes
• Core interdisciplin. main arguments are
  discussed through other disciplines

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debating.it results 2

• Typologies of interdisciplinaritya tentative
  taxonomy

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debating.it preliminary (and provocative)
conclusions

• Our findings suggest that
• Economics (top 4) goes beyond the boundaries of
  the discipline
• however
• The scope of this interdisciplinarity concerns
  mostly the extended domain of economics
  (Busines/Finance/QM)
• When it goes further it concerns topics data
  evidence rather than methodological tools and
  theoretical perspectives
• When it goes a bit further, adopting
  conceptual/theoretical tools from other
  disciplines, it does it in a very reflexive way,
  that is borrowing from colonised disciplines
  (ex. citing papers in Pol. Sc. based on game
  theory rational agents modelling)
• Therefore interdisciplinarity in Economics (if
  detected) appears in the form of juxtaposition of
  disciplines rather than integration of different
  disciplinary perspectives