The Origin and Evolution of the NBER Working Paper Series

James Poterba, MIT and NBER

July 2014

The Beginning

Bob Michael seeks an outlet for research from the NBER Center for Economic Analysis of Human Behavior and Social Institutions (December 1972)The Vision: “What I have in mind is simply a new heavy paper cover for manuscripts much like that used by many departments of economics and university research institutes …”Key Design Feature: “… [working papers have] not undergone the full critical review accorded the National Bureau’s studies…”

The Prototype by H. Irving Forman

Working Paper #1

The Launch: June 1973

Paper #1: Finis Welch, “Education, Information, and Efficiency” Paper #2: Barry Chiswick, “Hospital Utilization: An Analysis of SMSA Differences” (published in Explorations)Paper #3: Swarnjit Arora, “Error Component Regression Models and Their Applications” (published in Annals)3 WPs in first month, took 26 months to reach #100About 175 Papers before Martin Feldstein becomes NBER President in April 1977

The Great Expansion: Post 1978

1978: 55 Papers1981: 221 PapersMilestones:

WP1000: October 1982WP2000: August 1986WP5000: January 1995 (22 Years Post-Launch)WP10000: October 2003WP20000: March 2014

NBER WPs Today

1110 papers in 2013869 academic institution subscribers, 168 non-academic subscribersApproximately 25,000 recipients of “New This Week” email“Users who downloaded this paper also downloaded…” featureRoughly 5.5 million downloads per year, of which 1.8 million are non-OECD users and 40% are for papers more than three years oldAbout 75% of visitors find NBER papers from a Google search

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Working Papers by Program, 1972-2014

Top Working Paper Authors, 1973-2014Author Paper Count

Martin Feldstein 161

Joshua Aizenman 157

Richard Freeman 142

James Poterba 122

Andrei Shleifer 121

James Heckman 121

Michal Bordo 119

Assaf Razin 115

Ed Glaeser 115

Daron Acemoglu 114

Top Working Paper Authors, 2004-2014Author Paper Count

Daron Acemoglu 81

Joshua Aizenman 68

James Heckman 61

John List 60

Ed Glaeser 58

John Whalley 58

Michael Bordo 53

Shang-Jin Wei 50

Andre Shleifer 44

Olivia Mitchell 44

Rene Stulz 44

Most Downloaded Papers, 2005-2014Author WP

NumberTitle

Taylor 14631 (2009)

The Financial Crisis and the Policy Response: An Empirical Analysis of What Went Wrong

Reinhart & Rogoff

15639 (2010)

Growth in a Time of Debt

Reinhart & Rogoff

13882 (2008)

This Time is Different: A Panoramic view of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises

Barro 5698 (1996) Determinants of Economic Growth

Reinhart & Rogoff

13761 (2008)

Is the 2007 US Sub-Priime Financial Crisis so Different?

Reinhart & Rogoff

14656 (2009)

The Aftermath of Financial Crises

Shleifer & Vishny

5554 (1996) A Survey of Corporate Governance

Sachs & Warner 5398 (1995) Natural Resource Abundance & Economic Growth

Rajan 11728 (2005)

Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?

B. Hall, Jaffe, & Trajtenberg

8498 (2001) The NBER Patent Citation Data File