Law & Economics at sixty: Mapping the field with bibliometric and machine learning tools

Abstract

As the year 2020 marks the 60th anniversary of the landmark paper in the Law & Economics (L&E) field by Ronald Coase—The Problem of Social Cost—we provide a systematic bibliometric analysis of the development of this field over the years. We look at the output and input side of knowledge production in the field of L&E. The former consists of the volume of production and thematic coverage of the field. The latter—input—looks at the producers of knowledge, the institutional and country affiliations of authors, and the intellectual structure of the field. Thus, the “who”, the “where” knowledge is produced as is also that of on “whose” shoulders the field stands. We demonstrate that Law & Economics shifted from more theory driven work to empirical and evidence‐based contributions. Likewise, we show that the Law & Economics field tends to be dominated by authors affiliated with economics departments, and crucially; however, more impactful research seems to be produced by inter‐disciplinary cooperation. The L&E field further resembles the economics domain in terms of co‐authorship patterns, number of citations and lengths of papers. Finally, we look at diversity in the field of L&E and show, for instance, that the share of female scholars has been steadily growing for the last two decades.