The landscape of econometric discrete choice modelling research

Abstract

Econometric modelling of choice now constitutes a major cross-over between multiple fields of research in which quantitative valuation of human preferences is of interest. The methods are pervasively used by consumer, environmental and health economists as well as transportation researchers and beyond. This work analyses the scholarly literature on econometric discrete choice modelling developed in the last fifty years. The literature is estimated to have grown beyond 14,000 research items while an excess of 1,000 new items have been published each year since 2015. This trend has essentially doubled the size of this literature within the last five years. While the largest portion of this literature is concentrated in the transportation sector, the methods are currently most trendy in health economics. This is striking given that health economists come late to adopt econometric choice methods compared to other major disciplines. Since 2014, more applications of discrete choice models have been reported in health-related studies than any other domain. Also, while the number of applications in consumer and transportation studies have been fluctuating over the past few years, applications in environmental studies are steadily on the rise at a rate comparable to that of health. Activities in the methodological cluster of this field have rather notably slowed down during the recent years although not extinct. Also, despite slowing down of choice modelling applications in transportation compared to the previous decades, such applications have not disappeared from the transportation sector. A particular area of transportation research where applications of choice modelling methods are still notably trending is electric and automated mobility. Pioneering studies, most influential studies and various streams of choice modelling research along with their time of emergence and duration of trendiness are also objectively determined using a document co-citation analysis. Further analyses are also conducted on patterns of collaboration in this field. These outcomes document the history of development of choice modelling literature at a macro scale and provide a holistic understanding of various divisions of this field along with its influential entities.