<p>See <a href="http://logec.repec.org/scripts/itemstat.pf?type=redif-software;sortby=3d" rel="noreferrer">RePEc's software top</a>. You'll find much Stata, a bit Matlab, and nothing else.</p>

<p>From long personal observations, economists' preferences are ranked like this:</p>

<ol>
<li>Stata</li>
<li>(none)</li>
<li>Matlab</li>
<li>Python, R</li>
<li>SAS, Gauss </li>
</ol>

<p>Java, C#, C, Julia are used when performance is important (heavy simulations, combinatorics, etc.).</p>

<p>In a specific paper, software is easy to identify uniquely with plots (google "stata plots" or "r plots" for gallery) or replication files, as mentioned here.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2019-07-30T12:52:52.457Z
As can be seen in my answer to the above cited related question (which is not exactly a duplicate as it doesn't ask how to identify the software of a paper) https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/5853/most-common-programs-used-by-economists?noredirect=1&lq=1 SAS and GAUSS were used less often than both R and python, and FORTRAN, Mathematica, EViews, z-Tree, dynare, RATS , C , C++ were used more often than python. It obviously depends on the subfields, and some software was used more in the past and other software is up and coming.
Jan Höffler
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-01T22:13:48.220Z
2015-05-01T22:13:48.220Z
Anton Tarasenko
<p>The main economic journals are slowly starting to require authors to make their data <strong>and</strong> the code of their analysis available as part of the online appendix. When this is the case, it is easy to figure out which software was used.</p>

<p>One example are recent publications in the American Economic Review. For instance,</p>

<ul>
<li>Calsamiglia, Caterina, Guillaume Haeringer, and Flip Klijn. 2010. "Constrained School Choice: An Experimental Study." American Economic Review, 100(4): 1860-74. <a href="https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.100.4.1860" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.100.4.1860</a></li>
</ul>

<p>the online appendix of which contains the complete STATA code of the statistical analysis.</p>

<p>If the code is not available at the journal's webpage, other alternatives involve :</p>

<ul>
<li>Checking the website of the authors. </li>
<li>Contacting the authors themselves to ask if they could send you their code.</li>
</ul>

<p>None of these methods are great if you're trying to gather a sizable or representative dataset of software used in econ papers, but for anecdotal data, they should do the trick.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-05-01T02:03:07.673Z
2017-02-27T22:43:46.863Z
2017-02-27T22:43:46.863Z
Martin Van der Linden
<p>Is there any way to tell if a paper used R instead of Stata or Matlab for the estimation? I know it doesn't matter for the quality of the paper, but I'd just be interested to see how many papers use one software over the other. </p>

<p>I'm thinking an easy way might be by looking at the figures- ggplot means R, for example. </p>

<p>Again, not really an economics question, but it's about economics papers. </p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-06-20T09:51:31.873Z
possible duplicate of [Most common programs used by Economists](http://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/5853/most-common-programs-used-by-economists)
410 gone
<software><stata><r>
Papers that use R vs Stata
gannawag
# Papers that use R vs Stata

(Asked by: username_0 on 2015-05-01)

Is there any way to tell if a paper used R instead of Stata or Matlab for the estimation? I know it doesn't matter for the quality of the paper, but I'd just be interested to see how many papers use one software over the other.

I'm thinking an easy way might be by looking at the figures- ggplot means R, for example.

Again, not really an economics question, but it's about economics papers.

**Tags:** software, stata, r
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: possible duplicate of [Most common programs used by Economists](http://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/5853/most-common-programs-used-by-economists)  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_4 on 2015-05-01. Score: 7 | Accepted answer

The main economic journals are slowly starting to require authors to make their data **and** the code of their analysis available as part of the online appendix. When this is the case, it is easy to figure out which software was used.

One example are recent publications in the American Economic Review. For instance,

* Calsamiglia, Caterina, Guillaume Haeringer, and Flip Klijn. 2010. "Constrained School Choice: An Experimental Study." American Economic Review, 100(4): 1860-74. <https://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.100.4.1860>

the online appendix of which contains the complete STATA code of the statistical analysis.

If the code is not available at the journal's webpage, other alternatives involve :

* Checking the website of the authors.
* Contacting the authors themselves to ask if they could send you their code.

None of these methods are great if you're trying to gather a sizable or representative dataset of software used in econ papers, but for anecdotal data, they should do the trick.


---

### Answer by username_2 on 2015-05-01. Score: 5

See [RePEc's software top](http://logec.repec.org/scripts/itemstat.pf?type=redif-software;sortby=3d). You'll find much Stata, a bit Matlab, and nothing else.

From long personal observations, economists' preferences are ranked like this:

1. Stata
2. (none)
3. Matlab
4. Python, R
5. SAS, Gauss

Java, C#, C, Julia are used when performance is important (heavy simulations, combinatorics, etc.).

In a specific paper, software is easy to identify uniquely with plots (google "stata plots" or "r plots" for gallery) or replication files, as mentioned here.

> **Comments:**
> **username_3**: As can be seen in my answer to the above cited related question (which is not exactly a duplicate as it doesn't ask how to identify the software of a paper) https://economics.stackexchange.com/questions/5853/most-common-programs-used-by-economists?noredirect=1&lq=1 SAS and GAUSS were used less often than both R and python, and FORTRAN, Mathematica, EViews, z-Tree, dynare, RATS , C , C++ were used more often than python. It obviously depends on the subfields, and some software was used more in the past and other software is up and coming.  

---

