Methodology gaps in Economics

Representative open questions

Showing 30 of 118 — one per source paper, highest-quality first.

• Of ticks and tigers: Subjective event spaces in complexity economics (2026) · doi

  The paper proposes 'competitive self-regulation' as a corrective to epistemic monopoly in expertise but leaves the proposal incomplete, providing no operational definition of how competitive self-regulation would function in practice within regulated domains like crime labs or financial institutions, or how to measure its effectiveness in sustaining interpretive frame diversity.

• Artificial intelligence, capability transformation, and marine green development: empirical evidence from Coastal China (2026) · doi

  The robustness checks demonstrate stability across alternative AI measurements (entropy-weighted TOPSIS, patent counts) and alternative Marine Green Development Index constructions (Table 12), but dynamic lagged effects are tested only at one-period lag. Investigation of multi-period lagged effects and autoregressive specifications would clarify whether AI's impact on marine green development exhibits delayed or cumulative temporal patterns.

• Black and green: How electoral outcomes influence provincial circular economy performance in Italy (2026) · doi

  The research demonstrates socio-economic factors (unemployment rate, population density, GDP per capita, graduate education) as key determinants of circularity practices, but does not test interactive or moderating effects between electoral preferences and specific socio-economic conditions—for example, whether left-wing environmental commitment varies in strength across provinces with different labour market vulnerabilities.

• Dynamical analysis of an OLG model with interacting epidemiological and environmental domains (2026) · doi

  The tax rate parameter ω is treated as exogenous throughout the analysis. The authors explicitly identify the need to endogenize ω so it can adapt to the given economic-epidemiological-environmental context, which would require developing new equilibrium conditions and stability analysis for this extended model.

• Multi-asset optimal trade execution with stochastic cross-effects: An Obizhaeva–Wang-type framework (2026) · doi

  The paper proves well-definedness of the cost functional J_pm(X) and optimal execution paths under L2 admissibility constraints, but does not address numerical implementation or computational algorithms for solving the optimization problem with cross-asset execution effects. Practical solution schemes for the multi-asset system with general correlation structures remain unspecified.

• A critical review of the production pathways and storage limitations and economic feasibility of green hydrogen fuel (2026) · doi

  Standardized high-pressure pipeline infrastructure specifications for hydrogen transport have not been established to mitigate long-term hydrogen embrittlement degradation. Technical standards and materials testing protocols are needed to reduce pipeline failure risks in large-scale green hydrogen distribution networks.

• Predicting option prices from their price history via machine learning (2026) · doi

  The trading signal is derived from standardized ATM IV forecasts rather than the cross-sectional distribution of IVs at a given date, departing from Goyal and Saretto (2009). The relative performance of time-series versus cross-sectional IV prediction signals from the convolutional LSTM model has not been directly compared.

• DETERMINATION OF MARINE ECOTOURISM ZONES ON PISANG ISLAND – PESISIR BARAT, INDONESIA USING MARXAN ZONING (2026) · doi

  Stakeholder-specific objectives for ecotourism zoning (referenced via Gurney et al. 2015) are acknowledged in the literature but the paper does not detail which local community preferences, fisher objectives, or tourism operator constraints were explicitly weighted in the MARXAN cost function.

• From Hype to Hesitation: A Longitudinal Analysis of User Sentiments towards AI‑Enabled Fintech Lending Platforms (2026) · doi

  The study uses NLP techniques (LDA topic modeling mentioned in abbreviations) but does not specify how topic-sentiment associations were evaluated—specifically, whether dominant topics extracted from negative vs. positive sentiment clusters were compared, or if causality between specific topics and sentiment shifts was established through temporal lag analysis.

• Using artificial intelligence in marketing (2026) · doi

  The paper notes AI tools cannot reliably capture qualitative market nuances that may be equally or more significant than quantitative factors in marketing decision-making, but does not specify which qualitative dimensions (brand perception, emotional resonance, cultural context, etc.) require specific non-AI methodological approaches or AI-human hybrid frameworks.

• A Study on the Impact of UPI and Digital Payment system on the Spending Behaviour of college students (2026) · doi

  The study identifies that digital payments encourage frequent and impulsive spending among college students, but does not quantify the magnitude of this effect or establish causal mechanisms linking UPI transaction frequency to increased spending behavior across different student demographic segments.

• Impact on Adoption of Artificial Intelligence(AI) in the Banking Industry. (2026) · doi

  The paper identifies fraud detection as a key AI application area and mentions machine learning improvement of fraud detection models as a suggestion, but provides no empirical comparison of AI-based fraud detection performance metrics (false positive rates, detection accuracy, processing speed) against traditional rule-based banking fraud detection systems.

• DÖVLƏT BORCU, ONUN İQTİSADİ MAHİYYƏTİ VƏ NÖVLƏRİ (2026) · doi

  While the paper identifies fiscal discipline, state sector efficiency, and tax policy adjustment as institutional conditions imposed by creditors, it does not specify which combination and sequencing of these conditions produces optimal macroeconomic stability outcomes in the context of domestic versus external borrowing.

• Women and medicine (2010) · doi

  The paper notes insufficient investment in 'leadership training and development' for the current medical workforce but does not specify evidence-based competency frameworks, effectiveness metrics, or evaluation designs for assessing which leadership development interventions best support women physicians' advancement to senior medical leadership positions.

• Workforce Analytics for Manufacturing: Predicting Employee Job Satisfaction via Explainable Machine Learning and SHAP (2026) · doi

  The integration of Natural Language Processing (NLP) with structured survey metrics and exit interview qualitative data is proposed but lacks concrete methodology specification. The paper does not detail how NLP would be applied to unstructured text data, what sentiment analysis or topic modeling approaches would extract job satisfaction drivers, or how qualitative insights would be combined with quantitative SHAP values for explainability.

• VERGİ RİSKLƏRİ VƏ VERGİLƏRİN OPTİMALLAŞDIRILMASININ MÜASİR İQTİSADİ ŞƏRAİTDƏ ROLU (2026) · doi

  The paper identifies that security protocols must be strengthened and integrative data analysis must be implemented in tax audit systems adapting to digital methods, but does not specify what data integration frameworks, cybersecurity standards, or audit procedure modifications are needed for digital tax systems in developing economies like Azerbaijan.

• ŞİRKƏTİN MALİYYƏ SABİTLİYİNİN MÜƏYYƏN EDİLMƏSİNDƏ ƏSAS İNDİKATORLAR SİSTEMİ (2026) · doi

  Stress-testing and scenario-based modeling methodologies for financial stability assessment are mentioned as important but lack operational specifications for Azerbaijani corporate applications. The paper does not define which macroeconomic variables (exchange rates, interest rates, commodity prices) should drive scenarios, what shock magnitudes should be tested, or how to link these to company-specific financial ratios and leverage indicators.

• A Study on Integrating Production and Service Management Strategies for Achieving Competitive Advantage in Modern Organizations (2026) · doi

  Risk identification mechanisms for integrated production-service systems are described conceptually (e.g., service complaints signaling production problems), but the paper lacks concrete methodologies or quantitative thresholds for detecting and prioritizing these cross-functional risk signals in real-time monitoring systems.

• An Empirical Study of Price Action, Return, Volatility and Risk in MCX vs International Exchange: A Comparative Analysis of Gold, Silver, Oil, Gas and Copper (2026) · doi

  The study concludes that domestic factors shape silver's pricing behavior distinctly from other commodities, but does not employ vector autoregressions (VAR) or structural equation modeling to isolate and quantify the relative contributions of currency fluctuations, import tariffs, and local supply-demand shocks to MCX silver price movements compared to COMEX.

• Recruiter's Perception of Artificial Intelligence Based Tools in Recruitment at Virtusa, Chennai (2026) · doi

  The paper recommends examining 'longitudinal relationship between AI tool adoption maturity and measurable recruitment quality outcomes' but provides no baseline metrics for adoption maturity assessment or recruitment quality measurement. Specific operational metrics (time-to-hire, offer acceptance rate, diversity metrics, retention of hired candidates) should be defined and tracked.

• How artificial intelligence improves the resilience of marine firms: insights from China’s A-share market (2026) · doi

  The mechanism analysis confirms that AI increases Overseas Sales Ratio (OSR) through mitigation of cross-border information asymmetries, but does not empirically measure the magnitude of this information asymmetry reduction or identify which specific digital network capabilities (real-time market data access, automated trade documentation, cross-border logistics optimization) drive international market expansion in marine firms.

• Synthetic biology – pathways to commercialisation (2019) · doi

  The paper emphasizes the need for holistic and collaborative approaches to combine knowledge and skills as operational scale and complexity expand, but does not specify which interdisciplinary domains (regulatory affairs, supply chain engineering, social sciences) require integration or provide a framework for identifying skill gaps in synthetic biology commercialization teams.

• The Influence of Gen Z Characteristics and Company Strategy on Turnover Intention (2026) · doi

  The study does not distinguish between stated company strategies and their actual implementation or employee perception of implementation. Future research should measure the gap between declared corporate strategy (policies on file) versus perceived strategy (employee awareness and belief in strategy execution) to determine whether turnover intention is driven by strategy content or credibility-of-implementation issues.

• An autonomous pharmaceutical supply chain network for resilience and optimization: A multi-agent deep reinforcement learning framework (2026) · doi

  The spoilage rate improved from 8.5% to 2.1% under FEFO-aware ordering, but the paper does not quantify how sensitive this gain is to temperature-excursion modeling, expiration-date accuracy, or FEFO enforcement fidelity across distributed warehouses. A sensitivity analysis decomposing spoilage reduction across these factors would clarify which cold-chain tracking investments provide the highest ROI.

• Attitude Toward AI Use, Extent of AI Tool Utilization, and Administrative Efficiency among School Heads in SAMARICA District (2026) · doi

  The study recommends identifying AI tools that provide the most practical and meaningful support for school leadership functions, but it does not specify which comparative evaluation framework, effectiveness metrics, or cost-benefit analysis methodology should be used to assess different AI tools across diverse administrative tasks.

• WHAT ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CAN DO TO MITIGATE ASYMMETRIC INFORMATION IN ISLAMIC BANK: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK REVEALED (2026) · doi

  The early warning system relies on detecting anomalous patterns in monthly sales, operating expenses, and profit-loss ratios, but the paper provides no specification of the machine learning algorithms (e.g., isolation forests, autoencoders, statistical process control methods) or the training datasets required to establish baseline 'normal' patterns for different Islamic bank borrower industries and business sizes.

• Global Fast Fashion Industry: Present Opportunities and Future Challenges for Sustainability (2026) · doi

  The paper identifies that comprehensive sustainability measurements for the fast fashion sector must be developed, specifically for fair wages, gender equity, and safety of working conditions, but provides no framework for operationalizing or quantifying these metrics across global supply chains with varying labor standards.

• Entrepreneurial Skills and Quantitative Decision - Making: The Role of Business Mathematics in Emerging Enterprises of Assam (2026) · doi

  The study measures business mathematics with comparatively lower mean values than entrepreneurial skills and decision-making, but does not establish benchmarks or specify which quantitative competencies (statistical analysis, financial modeling, forecasting techniques) emerging Assam enterprises should develop to close the identified gap.

• Impact of Talent Management on Emotional Intelligence in Food Industry Companies in Hodeidah Governorate (2026) · doi

  The research identified that talent development and talent retention significantly impact emotional intelligence in food industry companies, but the paper does not specify which types of development programs (technical training, soft skills workshops, mentorship models) or retention strategies (benefits packages, career progression, work-life balance policies) are most effective for enhancing emotional intelligence dimensions such as self-awareness, self-regulation, and empathy.

• Integrated pollution and carbon mitigation delivers major health and economic co-benefits in China (2026) · doi

  The unidirectional coupling between the CEEPA computable general equilibrium model and GAINS restricts feedback mechanisms; specifically, the macroeconomic impacts of air pollution abatement costs on sectoral production decisions and household consumption patterns cannot feed back into the energy transition pathways, potentially underestimating the true economic-environmental trade-offs.