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I recently went through a few videos by Quanta magazine, talking about what, in their opinion at least, are the biggest breakthroughs in Mathematics, Computer Science, Physics and Biology/ Neuroscience.

Now, they do not have a video on what they think are the biggest breakthroughs in Economics in 2023. But I was wondering if there are other publications/ creators etc. that might have released such lists for Economics, or if not lists, maybe even broad areas. So here's my question:

  1. Can someone point me to such publications/ videos etc.?

  2. What would you consider the biggest breakthroughs in Economics in 2023 (if this question is allowed in this website)?

I know that contributions to Economics might be a bit more difficult to judge immediately: some ideas may take years and years before people realise their impact (which I feel is the case even for the other disciplines mentioned) and I have personally felt (could simply be my personal bias based on the content I have seen) that Economics has less of a consensus on what constitutes the set of pressing problems (like we have the Millennium problems in maths).... Given the nature of empirical economics in the last few decades (RCTs and specialised quasi/ natural experiments etc., basically economists as "plumbers" as Esther Duflo said), it feels economics papers are becoming more and more incremental in their contribution (not at all to say this is a bad thing of course), but there must be papers that are perceived to be groundbreaking even here, or even incremental papers that are of a nature that they provide highly valuable insights on long standing debates or questions. I just wanted to know where can I read/ watch about them or if anyone would be kind enough to share their own lists here.

Ishan Kashyap Hazarika
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    I have an article from the economist that says there weren't any breakthroughs in Economics, would you consider that evidence of absence? :) https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2023/01/12/has-economics-run-out-of-big-new-ideas – Leeh Mizrahi Dec 25 '23 at 00:24
  • This is from mid January 2023, so it reflects on 2022 rather than 2023. Let us wait two weeks and see if the Economist runs a similar piece again, this time about 2023. – Richard Hardy Dec 25 '23 at 03:34
  • Ahh interesting, their piece seems to reflect the "economists as plumbers" thing in the question.... yeah maybe they publish something about 2023 too.... – Ishan Kashyap Hazarika Dec 25 '23 at 19:17
  • Any idea if the economist has released a piece this year? I searched but couldn't find anything – Ishan Kashyap Hazarika Feb 19 '24 at 13:13

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