How to Write the Abstract of an Economics Paper

How to Write the Abstract of an Economics Paper

A lot of people will read no further than the abstract of your paper to decide whether it is worth reading, sharing, or citing. Some will not even get past the title. The abstract is your most compressed sales pitch: it must tell the reader what you did and what you found, clearly and fast.

This skill is based primarily on David Evans' analysis of abstracts in top economics journals, supplemented by Marc Bellemare's writing advice, empirical research on abstract readability, and common patterns from AER, QJE, and AEJ: Applied papers.

The Evidence on What Works

Before getting to structure, two empirical facts worth knowing:

Readability predicts citations. Dowling and others examined abstracts in Economics Letters and found that abstracts with simpler words and shorter sentences were associated with more citations. As Bellemare puts it: do not confuse lack of intelligibility with intellectual rigor.

Accessibility expands your audience. Bellemare's rule of thumb: if your title is not repellent and your abstract is intelligible to people outside your narrow subfield, you have expanded the scope of your citations tenfold - because many people cite papers they have only read the abstract of.

The Core Structure

Abstracts in top economics journals follow a compressed version of the introduction formula. Evans identifies five ingredients of a good introduction (motivation, research question, empirical approach, detailed results, value-added). The abstract squeezes a subset of these into 4-7 sentences. The typical pattern:

1. (Often) Open directly with the research question and empirical approach
2. (Sometimes) Open with one sentence of motivation, then jump into the research question and empirical approach
3. (Almost always) Spend most of the space on a detailed discussion of the results
4. (Sometimes) Close with one sentence on the implications of the results

That is the whole formula. Notice what is NOT in this list: sentences dedicated to the existing literature. The abstract is not the place to review what other people have done. That belongs in the introduction.

Section-by-Section Guidance

Opening: Research Question + Approach (1-2 sentences)

The most common opening for abstracts in top journals is to jump straight into the research question, often incorporating the empirical design in the same sentence.

Pattern A - Lead with the research question and method combined:

• "We embed a field experiment in [context] to test whether [question]."
• "We use a randomized controlled trial to study [question] in [setting]."
• "This paper estimates the effect of X on Y using [identification strategy] in [setting]."