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Subfield · Decision Sciences

General Decision Sciences research

General Decision Sciences is a subfield of Decision Sciences. Science Explorer counts 30k research works in it since 1950. 10.1% of them reached the world's top 10% most cited for their field and year.

In short: branch of applied probability theory.

Research works
30k
fractional, since 1950
In the world top 10%
3k
per year above
Top-10% rate
10.1%
share of its works in the world top 10%
Topics
2
Growth, 2018-21 → 2022-25
-10%
the tick is no change
Largest producer
United States
39% of the 10 largest, 2022-now
General Decision Sciences

Which countries lead General Decision Sciences research?

On research quality in 2022-now, the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom rank highest in General Decision Sciences. By volume, the United States and China publish the most (1.3k and 422 works in 2022-now).

By research quality, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States #1 all time 1.06× excellence · 1.60× journals · 100% breadth 11.1% top 10% · 1.2k works
  2. 2 Germany #3 all time 1.06× excellence · 1.33× journals · 100% breadth 10.6% top 10% · 372 works
  3. 3 United Kingdom #2 all time 1.14× excellence · 1.27× journals · 100% breadth 10.6% top 10% · 313 works
  4. 4 China #6 all time 0.88× excellence · 0.85× journals · 100% breadth 9.8% top 10% · 363 works

The track on each row is that row's top-10% rate. The ranking itself is the quality score, which compares the rate with what each place's own topics predict, adds its share of papers in the Nature Index journals, and counts output and breadth too.

Of 4 countries ranked in General Decision Sciences. Ranked on the quality score for 2022-now; the bracket is the all-time rank.

All countries ranked in General Decision Sciences

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 United States 1.3k works
  2. 2 China 422 works
  3. 3 Germany 401 works
  4. 4 United Kingdom 346 works
  5. 5 France 177 works
  6. 6 Italy 158 works
  7. 7 Netherlands 156 works
  8. 8 Canada 145 works
  9. 9 Australia 142 works
  10. 10 India 137 works

How concentrated that is

The same countries as shares of everything the list above accounts for. A node where two countries do two thirds of the work and one spread evenly across twelve read alike as a ranking and not at all alike here.

United States: 38.7%China: 12.4%Germany: 11.8%United Kingdom: 10.2%6 others listed: 26.9%39%largest
United States1,315 · 38.7%China422 · 12.4%Germany401 · 11.8%United Kingdom346 · 10.2%6 others listed914 · 26.9%

Shares of the rows listed above, not of the whole node.

Which institutions lead General Decision Sciences research?

By volume in 2022-now, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique publishes the most General Decision Sciences research, followed by Max Planck Society and University of Chicago.

By volume, 2022-now

  1. 1 Centre National de la Recherche ScientifiqueFrance 57 works
  2. 2 Max Planck SocietyGermany 33 works
  3. 3 University of ChicagoUnited States 30 works
  4. 4 New York UniversityUnited States 29 works
  5. 5 Erasmus University RotterdamNetherlands 26 works
  6. 6 Cornell UniversityUnited States 26 works
  7. 7 University of TorontoCanada 26 works
  8. 8 California University of PennsylvaniaUnited States 24 works
  9. 9 University of OxfordUnited Kingdom 23 works
  10. 10 Harvard UniversityUnited States 21 works

Who are the leading researchers in General Decision Sciences?

Counting only their work in General Decision Sciences, George F. Loewenstein, Amos Tversky and Daniel J. Kahneman have the most papers in the world top 10% for their subfield and year beyond the 10% expected.

  1. 1 George F. Loewenstein United States · #1,548 worldwide overall 27.5 of 56 papers here in the top 10%
  2. 2 Amos Tversky United States · #1,335 worldwide overall 21.5 of 35 papers here in the top 10%
  3. 3 Daniel J. Kahneman United States · #1,456 worldwide overall 21.5 of 38 papers here in the top 10%
  4. 4 Gerd Gigerenzer Germany · #34,841 worldwide overall 18.2 of 44 papers here in the top 10%
  5. 5 Paul Slovic United States · #3,176 worldwide overall 16.6 of 36 papers here in the top 10%
  6. 6 Colin F. Camerer United States · #3,355 worldwide overall 16.3 of 38 papers here in the top 10%
  7. 7 Raymond J. Dolan United Kingdom · #3,600 worldwide overall 14.5 of 33 papers here in the top 10%
  8. 8 Ralph Hertwig Germany · #25,819 worldwide overall 15.6 of 55 papers here in the top 10%
  9. 9 Richard H. Thaler United States · #4,046 worldwide overall 11.2 of 16 papers here in the top 10%
  10. 10 Eric J. Johnson United States · #53,667 worldwide overall 12.7 of 32 papers here in the top 10%

Ranked on their work in General Decision Sciences alone: how many more of their papers here reached the world top 10% for their subfield and year than the 10% expected, among 68,460 ranked researchers with a paper here. Each paper counts once, so many strong papers outrank one famous one, and a long record of ordinary papers does not climb. Identities come from OpenAlex author disambiguation, which occasionally merges or splits people.

Top 100 General Decision Sciences researchers

What are the most cited papers in General Decision Sciences?

The most cited paper in General Decision Sciences is "Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk" (Daniel J. Kahneman, Amos Tversky, 1988), with 32,957 citations. Next come "Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases" (28,737) and "The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice" (17,591).

Most cited papers
#PaperReleasedCitations
1 Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk Daniel J. Kahneman, Amos Tversky · Cambridge University Press eBooks Book chapter 25 Mar 1988 32,957
2 Judgment under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases Amos Tversky, Daniel J. Kahneman · Science 27 Sep 1974 28,737
3 The Framing of Decisions and the Psychology of Choice Amos Tversky, Daniel J. Kahneman · Science 30 Jan 1981 17,591
4 Advances in prospect theory: Cumulative representation of uncertainty Amos Tversky, Daniel J. Kahneman · Journal of Risk and Uncertainty Oct 1992 15,858
5 A Theory of Fairness, Competition, and Cooperation Ernst Fehr, Klaus M. Schmidt · The Quarterly Journal of Economics Open access Aug 1999 11,313
All 97 most cited papers, with filters and sorting

Where is General Decision Sciences research done?

The largest centres of General Decision Sciences research in 2022-now are London (United Kingdom), Beijing (China), New York (United States) and Paris (France). Among places with at least 20 works in it, it is an unusually large share of all research in California, Rotterdam and Princeton.

Largest cities, 2022-now

  1. 1 LondonUnited Kingdom 92 works
  2. 2 BeijingChina 76 works
  3. 3 New YorkUnited States 72 works
  4. 4 ParisFrance 68 works
  5. 5 TokyoJapan 53 works
  6. 6 SydneyAustralia 45 works
  7. 7 ChicagoUnited States 40 works
  8. 8 ShanghaiChina 39 works
  9. 9 TorontoCanada 37 works
  10. 10 BerlinGermany 37 works

Where it is the local speciality

  1. CaliforniaUS · 23.7 works39×
  2. RotterdamNL · 32.7 works11×
  3. PrincetonUS · 20.4 works7.5×
  4. CoventryGB · 20.1 works7.2×
← less than its size predicts1×more →

Location quotient: how much more of its research is in General Decision Sciences than the world average.

See General Decision Sciences on the map

General Decision Sciences research by country

The best places for General Decision Sciences research inside each country, with that country's researchers and world standing.

Where is the best place to study General Decision Sciences?

Among universities, judged by research, Stanford University, New York University and Princeton University score highest, combining standing in the field's ranking, excellence, specialisation, size, growth and international reach. Research strength is one signal when choosing where to study; it does not measure teaching.

0%10%20%30%mean 16.65%fractional works in this field (log) →share of work in the world top 10% →Stanford UniversityHarvard UniversityPrinceton UniversityNew York University
above the meannear itbelow it

One dot per university in the first ten of the table below, at the default weights. The upper left is the interesting corner: small places doing unusually strong work.

Standingthis field's institution ranking, three quarters all time and a quarter 2022-now
50%
Excellenceshare of its work in the world top 10%, 2022-now and all time averaged
20%
Specialisationhow much of its work is in this field, counted up to 10× the world share
5%
Sizeits output in this field, on a log scale
15%
Growthoutput growth, counted from -20% to +20%
5%
Internationalshare of its work with a co-author abroad
5%
Each slider sets a weight; the share it gets of the score is beside it.
#UniversityScoreRank in field (all time)Top 10%SpecialisationWorksGrowth
1Stanford UniversityUnited States 82.9- (#1)19.5%3.0×18 -9.2%
2New York UniversityUnited States 69.7- (#2)9.6%6.4×29 -36.7%
3Princeton UniversityUnited States 66.2- (#3)14.3%11.5×20 -0.2%
4Harvard UniversityUnited States 58.5- (#4)15.3%1.7×21 -2.3%
5University of ChicagoUnited States 54.8- (#7)9.1%8.9×30 +0.7%
6University of California, BerkeleyUnited States 54.4- (#6)24.9%4.4×16 -29.5%
7Cornell UniversityUnited States 52.6- (#8)13.7%5.1×26 +10.7%
8University of PennsylvaniaUnited States 51.0- (#5)18.8%3.7×16 -43.7%
9University of ZurichSwitzerland 42.4- (#15)24.8%7.3×20 -29.6%
10University College LondonUnited Kingdom 38.5- (#13)16.5%3.0×19 -24.8%

Universities only. The score blends standing (50%), excellence (20%), size (15%), specialisation (5%), growth (5%), international reach (5%), 2022-now; growth compares 2018-21 with 2022-25 and counts up to +20%, since a jump from a small base is mostly noise. Standing is the score in this field's institution ranking, three quarters over all time and a quarter 2022-now; excellence averages the two windows too. Four years alone undercount fields such as AI, where many conference and arXiv papers from 2022 on carry no affiliation in the data.

Every institution in General Decision Sciences, country by country

Is General Decision Sciences research growing?

Output in 2022-2025 was 10% lower than in 2018-2021, peaking in 2015.

still counting19801990200020102020
grewheldshrank

The same series as a ribbon: one cell per year, darker for more. The line above answers how much; this answers when.

Its share of all research

Growing output can still be a shrinking share: all of science grows. This is General Decision Sciences as a percentage of every work published that year, 0.018% in 2024.

still counting0.020%0.040%General Decision Sciences0.018% in 202519801990200020102020

Fractional works of General Decision Sciences over all fractional works that year. How the balance of science has shifted.

How much of it reaches the world top 10%

Year by year.

still counting5%10%15%General Decision Sciences10.3% in 2025200020102020

Of each year's works in it, the share that reached the world's 10% most cited for their field and year. A field is the world for its own topics, so there is no other line to hold it against.

Which topics inside it are moving

Growth and decline on one axis around a shared zero. Two lists side by side hide the thing that matters: whether the growth dwarfs the decline, or the other way round.

What does General Decision Sciences include?

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