The Economics Twitosphere Top 100 Influential Users: An Algorithmic Approach

[Title edited after comments on the use of the word "Economists". We switch to "Economics Twitosphere" which is closer to what the algorithm really identify] How is it possible to measure online influence on Twitter? And how to identify the top 100 most influential Twitter accounts related to economics? To address this issue, and following a methodology inspired by the working paper "Measuring User Influence in Twitter: The Million Follower Fallacy", we develop a pretty simple program in Python to extract data about followership relation on Twitter, and we use an algorithm close to the "Google PageRank" to classify and rank account by influence. We cluster data using Force Atlas algorithm and we use Gephi to draw the wonderfuuuuuul graph you'll see at the end of this article. But how does it work more precisely? Let's try to explain this step-by-step, using "nongeek" lexicon (if you just want to see the graph and/or the final list, you can directly go to the end of this article).

Step 1 - Identify a list of five influential economists on Twitter : We first need to define manually (subjectively) a closed list of 5 influential economists. We try to be as objective as possible, and we finally choose the five following accounts (3 Nobel Prize winners, and two economists with respectively 70K+ and 300K+ followers). This list can be criticized, but we find that our results are robust to the initial list used.

Paul Krugman (@NYTimeskrugman) Joseph Stiglitz (@JosephEStiglitz) Robert Shiller (@RobertJShiller) Justin Wolfers (@JustinWolfers) Nouriel Roubini (@Roubini)

Step 2 - Extract all the account followed by those five accounts: We use Twitter API to extract and insert into a database the Twitter ID of all the accounts followed by users from the list defined above... For example, Justin Wolfers follows 587 other users, so we add all those users to our database. And we've done the same thing for Krugman (who follows only 2 users), Stiglitz (78), Shiller (23) and Roubini (381).

Step 3 - Identify the nineteen "most commonly followed users": We make the hypothesis that when influential users commonly follow another user, then this user should also be influential. We identify the nineteen "most commonly followed Twitter Account" and add those accounts to our user database. Why 19 ? Simply because we will use 5 iterations (adding 5 times the 19 most commonly followed accounts), and 19*5 + 5 = 100. For example, Branko Milanovic (@BrankoMilan) is followed by Stiglitz, Roubini and Wolfers, so we add him to the list. Other influential accounts identified this way during the first iteration include Bradford DeLong (@delong), Austan Goolsbee (@Austan_Goolsbee), Richard Thaler (@R_Thaler), Jason Furman (@CEAChair), Project-Syndicate (@Prosyn) and the National Bureau of Economic Research (@nberpubs). The graph below shows the links between the 24 users after the first iteration. Links are directed (showing when an account follows another one) and the size of the node depends on entrant links.

Step 4 - Go back to Step 2 and extract information about the nineteen new accounts Step 5 - Go back to Step 3 and add the "nineteen most commonly followed users": Using the list from the previous graph of 24 accounts, instead of the initial list of 5 accounts. And again and again, until reaching 100 accounts

Step 6 - Open Gephi to use a "PageRank-like" classification, to clusterize data and to create a graph: And it's over! So here is the final graph, and below the list of the 100 most influential accounts identified with our methodology. The size of the node represents influence and the distance between two nodes depends on the similarity between accounts. It's far from perfect of course (our initial goal was to identify "economists", and we end up with quite a lot of journalists talking about economics and finance... but journalists are very active and influent on Twitter so it's not a big surprise), but actually we are pretty happy with the final list, as it is consistent with our (limited and biased) views of the "Twitter economic network". And the winners are ....

Top 100

Adam Davidson Co-founder of NPR's Planet Money. On Money columnist, NY Times Magazine.

Adam Posen President, Peterson Institute for International Economics; advises central banks & governments, and fixed income investors; proclaiming on policy daily

Alan B. Krueger Professor of Economics at Princeton University, Former Chairman of the President's Council of Economic Advisers

Amir Sufi Chicago Board of Trade Professor of Finance at Chicago Booth, co-director IGM at Chicago Booth, book House of Debt now available!!

Andrew Ross Sorkin New York Times Columnist & CNBC Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) Co-Anchor. Author, Too Big To Fail. Founder, @DealBook. Proud father. RTs ? endorsements

Annie Lowrey I write about the economy for @nymag.

Atul Gawande Surgeon, Writer, Researcher, Dilettante.

Austan Goolsbee Econ prof at U.Chicago's Booth School of Business and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers. Strategic partner, @32Advisors Barry Eichengreen George C. Pardee and Helen N. Pardee Professor of Economics and Political Science, University of California, Berkeley, NBER Research Associate, CEPR Res Fellow

Barry Ritholtz Director of Cognitive Dissonance

Ben Casselman Chief economics writer for @fivethirtyeight. Formerly with the Wall Street Journal. Links/RTs are not endorsements.

Ben Smith BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief. Beats working for a living. Email or gchat me at [email protected]. AIM benobserver.

Ben White POLITICO Chief Economic Correspondent and Morning Money columnist, CNBC contributor, dad. ex NYT, FT, WP. RTs mean I love you.

Betsey Stevenson Former Chief Economist at Labor. Current academic economist at Michigan. Always an economist at home.

Betsey Stevenson Member of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. Tweets may be archived. More at http://t.co/QjVMIjASt0.

Binyamin Appelbaum Washington correspondent for The New York Times. [email protected]

Blake Hounshell Editorial director, digital, at POLITICO, formerly at Foreign Policy. Mostly international, some politics. RT means it's interesting. bhounshell[at]politico

brad plumer Senior editor at http://t.co/NQERH88gK8. On the apocalypse beat, more or less.

Branko Milanovic 1) Income inequality; 2) Politics; 3) History; 4) Soccer. Author of The Haves and the Have-nots: A brief and idiosyncratic history of global inequality. Brookings Econ Aims to increase understanding of how the economy works and what can be done to help it work better.

Cardiff Garcia Cold shower, always running. Opinions are mine, obviously, but why aren't they yours?

Cass Sunstein Professor of Law, interested in behavioral economics.

Catherine Rampell Opinion columnist at @washingtonpost. Previously econ reporter/moonlighting theater critic at @nytimes.

Christopher Hayes Host of All In with Chris Hayes on MSNBC, Weeknights at 8pm. Editor at Large at The Nation. Cubs fan.

Chrystia Freeland Liberal MP for Toronto Centre. Author. Proud wife and mother of three. Runner when I can squeeze it in.

Dani Rodrik

Daniel Drezner Professor @FletcherSchool. Writer of Spoiler Alerts @washingtonpost. Author of The System Worked http://t.co/25PEMgHcK8. Shaker of hands with Mel Brooks.

Daniel Gross Executive Editor, Strategy + Business. Author of books. Writer of columns at Slate, DailyBeast, Newsweek, Yahoo!. Purveyor of one-liners.

daveweigel Roving reporter for @bpolitics. Finishing a book about progressive rock (W.W. Norton, 2015). [email protected], 302-507-6806.

David Frum Senior Editor, The Atlantic. Chairman, Policy Exchange. David.Frum(at)theAtlantic(dot)com

David Leonhardt Now: editor, The Upshot, for NYT. Then: DC bureau chief, Here's the Deal e-book, Pulitzer for commentary, math major. Still: Jim Rice, ma la, Art Blakey David Wessel Director, Hutchins Center on Fiscal & Monetary Policy, Brookings institution. Contributing correspondent, The Wall Street Journal

Dean Baker I am an economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. I also run the blog Beat the Press (@beat_the_press)

Derek Thompson Senior editor @TheAtlantic. Economics of work and play. Mondays @hereandnow. EMAIL: derek[at]theatlantic[dot]com

Donald Marron Economist and nature lover. Director of Economic Policy Initiatives & Institute Fellow @UrbanInstitute. Writer about economics, finance, and life.

Douglas Holtz-Eakin President of the American Action Forum (@AAF), Fmr. CBO Director, and @twizzlers fanatic.

Dylan Matthews I know, I know, I don't like me either. Retweets are proposals of marriage.

Eduardo Porter Journalist and author. Write Economic Scene column for NYT. Author of The Price of Everything.

Erik Brynjolfsson Economics of information and information technology, digitization, strategy, business intelligence. Co-author of The Second Machine Age #2MA

Evan Soltas Bloomberg View. Vox. Princeton.

Ezra Klein Editor-in-chief, http://t.co/hH5hVMv0KR. Policy analyst at MSNBC. Eater of food. Hater of filibuster. Lover of charts.

Farhad Manjoo I write about technology for the New York Times. Anyone can DM me. I prefer DM PR pitches. [email protected] Snapchat: fmanjoo

Felix Salmon To test the resolution of the young with tales of the small failings of the great, and shame the eager with ironic praise.

FiveThirtyEight The home of Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight on Twitter. Politics, Economics, Science, Life, Sports.

Garance Franke-Ruta Editor in Chief, @YahooPolitics, a @YahooNews production. Politics, media, breaking.

Greg Ip Chief economics commentator for The Wall Street Journal, and author of The Little Book of Economics, a citizen's economic primer.

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J. Bradford DeLong Primate, economist, utopian, shrill: macroblog: http://t.co/uVDLXYdxZg

Jack Shafer Politico. Formerly Reuters, Slate, SFWeekly, Washington City Paper, Inquiry. Email list: http://t.co/qS6GJKmn8c RSS: http://t.co/gIrIllsnpY

James Fallows National correspondent, the Atlantic

James Pethokoukis Peth-uh-KOO-kiss | American Enterprise Institute. CNBC Contributor. Jeopardy! champ. @TheWeek, @NRO, @Commentary, @NationalAffairs. Ex-Reuters columnist

Jared Bernstein Senior Fellow at @CenterOnBudget, former Chief Economist and Economic Adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, and author of the forthcoming book “The Reconnection

Jason Furman Chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers. Tweets may be archived. More at http://t.co/eaLyyFdh32.

Jesse Eisinger Senior Reporter @ ProPublica. New York Times Dealbook columnist. Wall St & Finance. Green Bay Packers. @sarahlellison's husband. Jim Tankersley Economic Policy Correspondent, The Washington Post. Dad. Backpacker. Cardinal. Oregonian eternal.

John Cassidy http://t.co/gpdFMVCdBz

Jonathan Chait Writer for New York magazine. [email protected]; a no-talent illiterate hack -- Donald Trump

Jonathan Cohn Writer at the Huffington Post, covering health care, social welfare, and other policy issues. Come for the journalism, stay for the Billy Joel interludes.

Joseph E. Stiglitz The official account of Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate economist based at Columbia University.

Joseph Weisenthal Doing something new at Bloomberg.

Josh Barro Correspondent for The Upshot at The New York Times. Host of MSNBC's Three Cents web show. Like Oprah, but judgmental and negative. [email protected]

Justin Fox Columnist @BV. Eater of free snacks.

Justin Wolfers Senior Fellow—Peterson Institute for International Economics | Professor @UMichEcon & @FordSchool | Contributing Columnist @NYTimes | Visiting Prof @USydneyEcon

Kelly Evans CNBC by way of WSJ.

Kevin Drum Political blogger and writer for Mother Jones magazine.

Lawrence H. Summers Charles W. Eliot Professor and President Emeritus at Harvard. Secretary of the Treasury for President Clinton and the Director of the NEC for President Obama. Lizzie O'Leary aspiring hildy johnson.

Marc Andreessen Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!

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Martin Wolf An automated feed of FT content by Martin Wolf, chief economics commentator at the Financial Times. Account maintained by FT's social media team.

Matt O'Brien I write about economics for Wonkblog. Formerly the Atlantic & TNR.

Matt Yglesias Executive Editor at Vox.

Matthew C. Klein FT Alphavillain. I took the background picture (of Everest).

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