Subject Classifications in Economics: Critical assessment and proposal for a general basic alternative

Abstract

This paper assesses the main subject classifications currently used in economics —Universal Decimal Classifi cation (UDC) and Journal of Economic Literature classifi cation (JEL)—, offers a design for a methodological procedure, and proposes a new subject classification. The new system was developed under the principles of comprehensiveness, universality, terminological accuracy, clarity in conceptual demarcations, simplicity, currency, and appropriateness to the subject divisions commonly used by economists. The proposed classification is developed only to the second hierarchical level, has 40 basic subject divisions and is innovative, although it maintains a close relationship to the main current classifications —UDC and JEL— as well as to the fi elds of knowledge defi ned by teaching and research programs in Spanish universities. Its aim is to improve the quality and efficiency of document handling and the effectiveness of the overall information system and, as such, assists two types of users: those who deal with bibliographic manterial on Economics by improving the speed and quality of their work (of organization, classification, indexing, etc.) and those who perform searches by facilitating the use and choice of subject terms and improving the accuracy of their search results.