100 volumes of Labour Economics: A bibliometric retrospective

Abstract

This study presents a systematic bibliometric analysis of Labour Economics (LE), to provide insights into the scientific development, intellectual structure and global research trends on its 100th volume. The dataset is limited to publications indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases. The analysis uses bibliometric techniques and visualization tools, like VOSviewer and the Bibliometrix package in R, and covers several performance indicators including annual publications, citation metrics, productive authors, institutions & countries, topic clusters and keyword trends through time. The analysis shows that the journal’s scholarly impact has grown significantly over time. The traditional broad themes of labour economic research continue to dominate the publications with core research still focused on unemployment, employment, wages, labour supply, education and human capital. The journal’s thematic scope has broadened toward policy-relevant and interdisciplinary issues, including gender inequality, immigration, discrimination, labour market policy, and health-related labour outcomes. More recent attention to topics such as COVID-19, mental health, and peer effects further reflects this ongoing diversification. The analysis also reveals that modern research in LE increasingly utilizes sophisticated empirical methodologies, particularly causal identification methods such as difference-in-differences, matching and field experiments. The geographical and institutional analyses show that the intellectual production of the journal is concentrated in Europe and North America, with United States, Germany and United Kingdom, emerging as the most influential contributors. Overall, the results show that LE holds a competitive position among international journals in the field, with a strong focus on empirical and policy-relevant research addressing contemporary labour market issues.