In a recent Bloomberg article, Noah Smith celebrates the increasing trend of empirical work in economics over the years. Purely theoretical papers are on the decline as a share of all published work. More and more economists are utilizing data to estimate the magnitude of various effects or to estimate specific parameters in theoretical models.
Empirical work is on the rise
The following figure from Angrist et al (2017)1 backs up Smith’s claims — empirical work is on the rise.
Of course, the distinction between a purely theoretical paper and an empirical paper in the mainstream is quite different from the Misesian distinction between economic theory and empirical work (history). But the trend is undeniable — economists are using data in more of their research than they used to.
Not only is empirical work in general on the rise, but one particular source of data is more popular than ever: surveys. To proxy the growth in popularity of surveys, I’ve plotted the National Longitudinal Survey citations by year since 1968:
I’d like to focus on labor economics because survey data is especially popular in that field. Other fields also use survey data, though sometimes in an indirect way. Macroeconomists, for example, indirectly and perhaps unwittingly use survey data whenever they use price indices and unemployment rate data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The BLS and their NLS
The National Longitudinal Surveys are a product of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The US spends close to $3 billion a year on collecting statistics about American citizens. The largest expenditure comes from the census (over $1 billion), but the Bureau of Labor Statistics comes in second with a budget of $618 million.
The BLS administers a large collection of surveys to construct and calculate macroeconomic data (like price indices and unemployment rates), as well as to inform policymakers and bureaucrats as they carefully steer the country toward full employment and luxurious working conditions for all.
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