The role of journals in the formation of economic knowledge: an institutional analysis
Journals undoubtedly play a fundamental role in shaping economic knowledge. Many articles have been devoted to the pressure generated by top economic journals and the journal ranking system in directing economic research. On the one hand, it has been emphasized that this favors the expansion of the mainstream at the expense of heterodox approaches and penalizes innovative research. On the other hand, authors such as Colander and colleagues have argued that the mainstream has the capacity to change by embracing different methods and approaches. Therefore, the mainstream is no longer identifiable with the original orthodox approach. However, little attention has been paid to the specific mechanisms that determine the formation and change of economic knowledge, because analyses are often limited to demonstrating either the existence of institutional concentration (such as journals, departments, universities, etc.) or the protean nature of the mainstream. The analysis of institutional change proposed by Douglass North can provide a useful tool for understanding how economic knowledge changes through the interaction between institutions (such as research rules) and organizations (like journals). The paper aims to investigate the relationship between top-down and bottom-up institutions by linking it to the phenomenon of growing specialization in economics.
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Keywords: Journals, economic knowledge, evolution of science, North's approach, specialization
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