The Place of Uncertainty in Heterodox Economics Journals: A Bibliometric Study

Abstract:

Uncertainty is a common theme in heterodox economics. This article investigates how heterodox journals have been dealing with the concept of uncertainty. It relies on a bibliometric analysis to identify the concept of uncertainty in top heterodox journals and the genealogy of different heterodox meanings of uncertainty among those journals.

Keywords::

• uncertainty
• heterodox economics
• heterodox journals
• bibliometric

JEL Classification Codes::

• B50

Notes

1 Articles in which an economic concept of “uncertainty” does not take place, we mean those articles that use the English meaning of “uncertainty,” or the word “uncertainty” is just a part of the title or a reference.

2 Regarding both co-citation network and keyword co-occurrence—analyzed with the aid of the Bibliometrix package of the statistical program R (Aria and Cuccurullo 2017)—references and keywords are grouped into clusters by a random walk function called Walktrap (Pons and Latapy 2006). The association between vertices is given by the measure of similarities called Association Strength (Van Eck and Waltman 2009). Lastly, the presentation of the figures follows the algorithm of Tomas Fruchterman and Edward Reingold (1991).

3 During the mid-1990s, the CJE promoted a series of critical survey articles. Its goal was “to report on recent developments, to provide an assessment of alternative approaches and to suggest lines of future inquiry” (Freeman 1994: 663). Apart from Freeman (1994), Allin Cottrell’s (1994) “Post-Keynesian Monetary Economics: A Critical Survey,” Herbert Hovenkamp’s (1995) “Law and Economics in the United States: A Brief Historical Survey” and Warren Samuels’s (1995) “The Present State of Institutional Economics” complete the series.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Felipe Almeida

Felipe Almeida is a professor of economics and Luis Gustavo de Paula is a Ph.D. candidate, both at the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil). This research has been supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in Brazil.

Luis Gustavo de Paula

Felipe Almeida is a professor of economics and Luis Gustavo de Paula is a Ph.D. candidate, both at the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil). This research has been supported by the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq) in Brazil.