Reading economics papers – where to start

Why read academic papers in economics?

Understanding economics at a university level requires reading academic papers. 

Academic papers are a fantastic opportunity to inform yourself about an issue at the highest level. 

Economic consultants, policymakers and academics will all be making use of academic papers in their work. So understanding how to read economics literature can be a key skill in a lot of jobs.

Moreover if you are applying to a top university for an economics course, reading and reflecting on academic papers you have read can be an excellent signal in a personal statement when done well. 

Indeed, with how competitive economics courses are, personal statements containing several academic papers are one way in which students are trying to differentiate themselves from other candidates. 

So, where do I start?

The one issue is that it can be tough to start reading papers without any help. Some papers have heavy mathematics, making it harder to engage with for a student untrained in the mathematics behind economics.

So, for those looking to get into reading economics papers, I have provided a list of papers below by topic.

I have picked papers that require very little or no mathematics. So while some of the papers are dense, they should all be readable. 

The Journal of Economic Perspectives contains more accessible papers. So my paper recommendations below are from this journal. I may add more in the future from other journals.

Please feel free to choose from the links to the following papers below:

Manning, Alan (2021) “The Elusive Employment Effect of the Minimum Wage”, Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol. 35, No. 1, Winter 2021 (pp. 3-26)

Giupponi G., Landais C., Lapeyre A. (2022), “Should We Insure Workers or Jobs during Recessions?”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 36, No. 2, Spring 2022 (pp. 29-54)

Hoffmann, F., Lee D.S., Lemieux T. (2020), “Growing Income Inequality in the United States and Other Advanced Economies”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 34, No. 4, Fall 2020 (pp. 52-78)

Saez E. and Zucman G., “The Rise of Income and Wealth Inequality in America: Evidence from Distributional Macroeconomic Accounts”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol.34, No. 4, Fall 2020 (pp. 3-26).

Gertler and Gilchrist (2018), “What Happened: Financial Factors in the Great Recession”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 32, No. 3, Summer 2018, (pp. 3-30)

Shapiro (2019), “Protecting Competition in the American Economy: Merger Control, Tech Titans, Labor Markets”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 33, No. 3, Summer 2019 (pp. 69-93)

Lamoreaux (2019), “The Problem of Bigness: From Standard Oil to Google”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 33, No. 3, Summer 2019 (pp. 94-117)

Kraay and McKenzie (2014), “Do Poverty Traps Exist? Assessing the Evidence”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 28, No. 3, Summer 2014 (pp. 127-48)

Gollin (2014), “The Lewis Model: A 60-Year Retrospective”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 28, No. 3, Summer 2014 (pp. 71-88)

Samuelson (2016), “Game Theory in Economics and Beyond”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 30, No. 4, Fall 2016 (pp. 107-30)

Autor (2015), “Why Are There Still So Many Jobs? The History and Future of Workplace Automation”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 29, No. 3, Summer 2015 (pp.3-30) 

What I would recommend is to search for papers based on your interests. For example, if you are interested in taxation, search for a paper on that topic.

You can find other papers here. I also recommend searching in the “Google Scholar” search function on the particular topics you find interesting. Note that most economics papers are unlikely to be accessible without some training in microeconomic theory or econometrics.

However the papers above are a great introduction to the subject for those studying A Level, applying to top universities or transitioning to an undergraduate economics course.

---

For more related economics resources, click the blue button below: