Which leading journal leads? Idea diffusion in economics research journals.

Do general interest journals set the trends in research attention to particular topics, or is it field journals that have greater initial influence? In this paper, we focus on the subfield of environmental economics and attempt to empirically identify whether it has been the leading general interest journals or the top environmental economics field journal that has set the research trends on climate change, air pollution, water pollution, and other topics. We use textual analysis and Granger causality tests to investigate the question of which journals lead in publication of papers related to these topics in environmental economics. Our results indicate that leadership depends on the topic; however, there is some evidence that the top field journal in environmental economics generally took the lead in more controversial topics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]