Andrei the Great

Bob Subrick at the Stationary Bandit reports on the new study which tracks the most cited economists over the past 10 years (1995-2005).  Andrei Shleifer tops the list with roughly 3000 citations to his studies in behavioral finance, Russian privatization, law and finance, and political economy.  Students of my generation grew up on the work of Joe Stiglitz and Robert Lucas --- both brilliant individuals no doubt.   But consider how much more we learn from the work of Shleifer that is relevant to the real-world than we do from that work of the 1970s and 1980s.  As my students have been hearing for the past 10 years, it is my opinion that Andrei Shleifer is the most important mainstream economists for students of market process perspective to study.  It turns out that he is not only important for market process economists to study to learn about how to address problems in the real-world, but for everyone doing economics and political economy as the citation pattern demonstrates.  Congratulations to Andrei and his team of co-authors (who show up on the list as well).  Time for market process economists to pay attention to the work pattern and style of research that Shleifer and his team follow.  If we want to have an impact on professional opinion, perhaps there is something important for us to learn in terms of topics to study and research output expectations.