Understanding Robert Lucas (1967-1981): his influence and influences

Abstract

Abstract This paper analyzes Robert Lucas's contribution to economic theory between 1967 (year of his first solo publication) and 1981 (the year before the emergence of Real Business Cycle approach), and it has two parts. The first one, using citation data from three different sources, we try to answer two questions: (i) What are Lucas's most influential papers currently? (ii) How has this influence changed through time? We show, for instance, that according to two of those three sources, Lucas's most influential paper today is not from his business cycle research agenda, which gave him his Nobel Prize in 1995. Moreover, it is clear the loss of influence of Lucas's macroeconomic theory since the early 1980s. In the second part, by cataloging all the works that Lucas had used as bibliographical references in his papers and separating them in two categories (positive and negative), we try to understand who exerted influence on him. We show that the author that Lucas most cited in a positive context were John Muth, Milton Friedman and Edmund Phelps. The authors more often cited in a negative context were John M. Keynes and A. W. Phillips. We discuss the reasons behind this data.