Macroeconomic Research, Present and Past / Philip J. Glandon, Kenneth Kuttner, Sandeep Mazumder, Caleb Stroup.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Glandon, Philip J.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Kuttner, Kenneth.

Mazumder, Sandeep.

Stroup, Caleb.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w29628.

NBER working paper series no. w29628

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2022.

Summary:

How is macroeconomic research conducted and what is it trying to accomplish? We explore these questions using information gleaned from 1,894 articles published in ten leading journals. We find that over the past 40 years there has been a growing emphasis on increasingly sophisticated quantitative theory, such as DSGE modeling, and papers employing these methods now account for the majority of articles in macro journals. The shift towards quantitative theory is mirrored by a decline in the use of econometric methods to test economic hypotheses. Econometric techniques borrowed from applied microeconomics have to a large extent displaced time series methods, and empirical papers increasingly rely on micro and proprietary data sources. Market imperfections are pervasive, and the amount of research involving financial frictions has increased significantly in the past ten years. The frequency with which non-macro JEL codes appear in macro articles indicates a great deal of overlap between macroeconomics and other fields.

Notes:

Print version record

January 2022.