Recombination of ideas and the direction of inventive activity in economic growth research : Evidence from the Journal of Economic Growth

Abstract

We explore the inventive activity and recombinant ideas in the field of economic growth research by analyzing the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification codes assigned to articles published in the Journal of Economic Growth. The average number of JEL codes, authors, keywords, pages and references per article have increased over time, consistent with the increasingly complex idea combinations. Research is concentrated around specific JEL codes (O4 and O1), but the concentration has decreased, suggesting an increasing variety of field-crossing idea combinations. We observe a negative association between the number of JEL codes and received citations. Moreover, having no JEL code from the O class is negatively associated with received citations. The findings suggest that, on average, articles combining ideas from more than two fields and articles focusing on atypical topics are less likely to become influential.