Diffusion

A multinomial discrete-choice model of method adoption in the AER and AEJ journals, 2011 to 2024. The data do not support tipping: the local peer effect is bounded an order of magnitude below the tipping threshold, and the aggregate dynamics are the persistence of fundamentals under slow adjustment.

A framework for how economists adopt new methods, where the cost of learning a technique, the returns to specialization, and the sorting of researchers into method-based communities shape which methods become mainstream. Revise and resubmit at the Journal of Economic Methodology.