The most cited economics articles in the last five years

The source is REPEC, here is the list.  I believe if I were starting out today, I would end up as a law professor, not an economist, though perhaps I would do economics in a legal guise.

I might add that number of citations and influence are, in my view, diverging.  Steve Levitt has had a huge influence on economics, an influence which is underrepresented in his number of citations.  You won’t cite him just because you’ve been inspired by the kind of paper he writes, and how many other economics papers are there on girls’ names or soccer kicks?  Furthermore the more that economic research fragments, and becomes less theoretical, the more that the most cited papers are likely to be macroeconomics, as this list illustrates.  At least macro papers will still share a common topic.

Hat tip to Economic Logic.