The UK Research Assessment Exercise and the narrowing of UK economics

Abstract

The aim of this article is to delineate an empirically grounded, structure-causal going concern recursive model of UK economics that, in the context of the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and local department decision making, explains the progressive elimination of heterodox economics, the progressive homogenisation of mainstream economics from 1992 to the present and the continued rise to dominance of a select group of departments, and indicates whether these events will continue under the Research Excellence Framework selectivity exercise in 2014.