The impact of Fama (1970) : bibliometric analysis with textual context

This paper examines the impact of Fama’s 1970 review, one of the most cited articles in economics, which introduces the efficient market hypothesis. I use an original database combining bibliometric data, the documents citing Fama, and textual data, the paragraph in which Fama is cited. The analysis reveals Fama’s influence beyond finance, showing that his work was widely cited across other fields, including the rest of economics, management, marketing, and law. By analyzing the paragraphs that cite Fama, I show that the efficient market hypothesis was more frequently critically discussed within core finance research, while it was uncritically used by peripheral research programs.