Six Dimensions of Concentration in Economics: Scientometric Evidence from a Large-Scale Data Set

This paper scientometrically investigates concentration in economics between 1956 and 2016 using a large-scale data set. It is revealed that economics is highly concentrated along six dimensions: articles, journals, regions, institutions, authors, and paradigms. North America accounts for half of all published articles and three quarters of all citations, while the top twenty academic institutions reap a share of 42 percent of all citations. The top 100 authors alone receive a share of 15 percent. Five journals account for 27.7 percent of all citations and only 8 percent of all articles, and 3 percent of all citations may be attributed to heterodox schools of thought. The overall Gini coefficient for the distribution of citations among articles is 0.72. Generally, concentration is found to increase towards the top of the discipline and to be higher and more persistent on the level of citations than on the level of articles. Concentration has increased over the last few decades, with the strongest increases occurring already until the 1970s.Series: Ecological Economic Paper

Pluralism in the Market of Science? A citation network analysis of economic research at universities in Vienna.

Pluralism has become a central issue not only in the public discourse but also in heterodox economics, as the focus on impact factors and rankings based on citations continues to increase. This marketization of science has been an institutional vehicle for the economic mainstream to promote its ideas. Citations thus have become a central currency in economics as a discipline. At the same time they allow to investigate patterns in the discourse. Analyzing articles published by the two major economics departments and the more interdisciplinary Department for Socioeconomics in Vienna, this paper is novel in applying both bibliometric techniques and citation network analysis on the department level. We find that (1) Articles in heterodox journals strongly reference the economic mainstream, while the mainstream does not cite heterodox journals, (2) Articles written by researchers of the Department of Socioeconomics cite more heterodox journals irrespective of whether they are published in mainstream or heterodox journals, (3) The economics departments display a citation network exhibiting a clear "mainstream core - heterodox periphery" structure, as Dobusch & Kapeller (2012b) suggest the overall discourse in economics to be, while the Department of Socioeconomics could be described as a plural though not pluralistic department with many distinct modules in the network , reflecting various disciplines, topics and schools of thought. (authors' abstract)Series: Ecological Economic Paper

Orthodox Core-Heterodox Periphery? Contrasting Citation Networks of Economics Departments in Vienna

The notion of an "orthodox core-heterodox periphery" structure and the extent of interdisciplinary links have been widely discussed, and partially investigated bibliometrically, within economic discourse. We extend this research by applying tools from social network analysis to citation data of three economics departments located in Vienna, two mainstream and one non-mainstream, to assess their relative citation patterns. We show that both mainstream economics departments follow the asserted core-periphery pattern and have a mono-disciplinary research focus, while the citation network of the non-mainstream department has a polycentric structure and is both more heterodox and interdisciplinary. These findings suggest that discussions about the future of heterodox economics should pay more attention to the organizational level and seek allies from other disciplines

Planetary carambolage: The evolutionary political economy of technology, nature and work

The following editorial introduces the special issue (SI) on “Work, Environment and Planetary-scale Computation in Political-Economic Evolution”. Here, however, we go beyond an outline of what each contribution to the SI addresses, and attempt to draw a more pronounced shared embedding of the arguments that have come to the fore. The original idea of this SI was to synthesize a range of contemporary global political-economic challenges, i.e. (1) technology (esp. digital transformation), (2) nature (esp. ecological crisis) and (3) work (esp. precarization via the evolving platform economy). The main argument developed in this editorial reflection focuses on the common ground and origin of those processes found in the complex evolution of capitalist development. We frame the latter by assigning it a new term, i.e. “planetary carambolage”

Sustainable Work

In a highly globalised world where all production and consumption activities are internationally intertwined and the environmental consequences of those actions are hard to identify, rethinking the role of work in our societies according to sustainability principles is a complex but highly necessary task. Salaried work has become one of the crucial indicators to analyse any country in the world. By looking at the proportion of the population that is employed, the working conditions they have, and how productive they are when performing their tasks, it is possible to produce an image of a country's society to assist in the understanding of the levels of well-being of its citizens. Work and labour markets not only largely structure the way the economy and society function, they also heavily influence an individual's life satisfaction and happiness; virtually the entire life of a person is designed around their work. Given the relevance work has at all levels, diving into the concept of sustainable work is a crucial project due to the urgency of environmental matters. The biggest role humanity faces is how to transform our societies so that they are sustainable from a social, ecological and economic perspective. For the sustainable society vision, work would need to be drastically altered in order to adapt it to the multi-dimensional sustainability requirements. This research aims to contribute to this enterprise by identifying the conditions that define the sustainability of work and then present an overview of seven European countries from this perspective. The present document introduces our conceptualisation of work and explains its main components. These are designed around the idea of the sustainable society and are composed of individuals' needs, equity and planetary boundaries. The final section concludes and introduces the different country-case studies.Series: WWWforEurop

Kapitel I: Zusammenfassung Für Entscheidungstragende

Derzeit ist es schwierig, in Österreich klimafreundlich zu leben. In den meisten Lebensbereichen, von Arbeit über Mobilität und Wohnen bis hin zu Ernährung und Freizeitgestaltung, fördern bestehende Strukturen klimaschädigendes Verhalten und erschweren klimafreundliches Leben (hohe Übereinstimmung, starke Literaturbasis). {Kap 3-9} Der vorliegende Bericht bestärkt somit für Österreich die Aussagen des Klimarates der Vereinten Nationen (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC), wonach zur Erreichung der Ziele des Pariser Klimaabkommens grundlegende Transformationen im Sinne umfassender Strukturveränderungen notwendig sind (hohe Übereinstimmung, starke Literaturbasis)

Kapitel II: Summary for Policymakers

This technical summary provides an overview of the main statements of the APCC SR Structures for Climate-Friendly Living chapters. Based on scientific literature, the report assesses different approaches for transforming structures in order to make climate-friendly living in Austria possible and make it permanently and quickly the new status quo