The citation performance of the references in the standard graduate-level microeconomics textbook: Mas-Collel et al. (1995)

The Microeconomic Theory by (Mas-Colell et al., Microeconomic Theory, Oxford University Press, 1995) has become the standard microeconomics textbook in economics PhD programs shortly after its publication. Despite 25 years having passed since the first and only edition, the textbook is still used predominantly in these programs. In this paper, we investigate the citation performance of the references in the textbook after 1995. We selected a comparison group of publications that have similar citation performance as the references in the textbook before 1995. We find that the references in the textbook have performed better than the comparison group of publications after 1995. Therefore, we conclude that one of the reasons for the success of the textbook might the careful choice of its references.