Paper Characteristics

Abstract

We observe that the length of papers depends on their subject area, although length does demonstrate an increase over time. Article length is also negatively correlated with experience. Microeconomics dominates the subject agenda and shows an increase in relative importance over time, whereas many other areas have experienced a considerable decrease (e.g., labour and demographic economics, macroeconomics, and monetary economics). Between 1984–8 and 2004–8, articles, particularly those by female research groups, use fewer equations per page but more tables and figures. We also observe an inverted U-shape relation between experience and total number of equations (and vice versa for tables).