<p>Plamen Nikolov of Binghamton University presents a brief treatment of this in "Writing Tips For Economics Research Papers". He notes that there are two basic rules of economic usage: </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>"Long run" (without a hyphen) is a noun. "Long-run" (with a hyphen) is
  an adjective. Same with short(-)run. and "Saving" (without a terminal
  s) is a flow. "Savings" (with a terminal s) is a stock.</p>
</blockquote>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-09-21T16:45:58.903Z
2016-09-21T16:49:23.893Z
2016-09-21T16:49:23.893Z
Dawson A. Verley
<p>In the econ literature, what is the convention when it comes to (not) hypenating some common terms like:</p>

<ul>
<li>first(-?)best, second(-?)best,...</li>
<li>best(-?)response?</li>
<li>...</li>
</ul>

<p>The Economist suggests that <a href="http://www.economist.com/style-guide/hyphens" rel="nofollow noreferrer">"There is no firm rule to help you decide which words are run together, hyphenated or left separate"</a> so I thought people here could be more aware of the conventions in econ than people, say, at <a href="http://english.stackexchange.com">http://english.stackexchange.com</a>.</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-09-20T17:41:26.600Z
Personally for compound adjectives I would use "This response is second best" but "This is a second-best response".  So long as you are not ambiguous, I doubt it matters.
Henry
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-09-20T19:18:16.713Z
Of all the responses to this question, I like the second best.
Giskard
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-09-20T19:55:54.790Z
I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not about economics. It's about typographic conventions.
410 gone
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-09-21T20:31:58.740Z
My advice would be to get a good style guide, such as the Chicago manual and follow its advice.
Ubiquitous
<definition>
A guide to hyphenation in economics?
Martin Van der Linden
# A guide to hyphenation in economics?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2016-09-20)

In the econ literature, what is the convention when it comes to (not) hypenating some common terms like:

* first(-?)best, second(-?)best,...
* best(-?)response?
* ...

The Economist suggests that ["There is no firm rule to help you decide which words are run together, hyphenated or left separate"](http://www.economist.com/style-guide/hyphens) so I thought people here could be more aware of the conventions in econ than people, say, at <http://english.stackexchange.com>.

**Tags:** definition
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: Personally for compound adjectives I would use "This response is second best" but "This is a second-best response".  So long as you are not ambiguous, I doubt it matters.  
> **username_2**: Of all the responses to this question, I like the second best.  
> **username_3**: I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it's not about economics. It's about typographic conventions.  
> **username_4**: My advice would be to get a good style guide, such as the Chicago manual and follow its advice.  

---

## 1 answers

### Answer by username_5 on 2016-09-21. Score: 5

Plamen Nikolov of Binghamton University presents a brief treatment of this in "Writing Tips For Economics Research Papers". He notes that there are two basic rules of economic usage:

> "Long run" (without a hyphen) is a noun. "Long-run" (with a hyphen) is
> an adjective. Same with short(-)run. and "Saving" (without a terminal
> s) is a flow. "Savings" (with a terminal s) is a stock.


---

