Citations as an indicator of classic works and major contributors in social choice

Summary and conclusions

The determination of classics in a field can be accomplished in many ways. We believer our methodology provides a better representation of the true classics than do the alternatives. While each reader may find some favorites missing from our list, it is hard to argue that the list is entirely wrong. What one must argue is that the opinion of those active in the field weighted as we have done by their publications is wrong.

The technique, we believe, is rather powerful. It has allowed us to develop an empirically based understanding of the field of social choice which many may only sense indirectly through casual observation. The dominance of Arrow and his classic book are evident in all the tables. The division between the mathematical and verbal traditions can be deduced from Table 2. The perspectives of journals can also be deduced from this form of inquiry as we have in Table 4. Major contributors can be identified as we have in Table 3. In short, we believe we have demonstrated that the citation methodology we have developed can be a useful tool to the study of this or any other field of research.