Based on the data of 85,000 academic papers in economy from 2006 to 2016 from CNKI, the paper selected 100 academic papers with the highest number of citations as research object, and analyzed the characteristics and implications of these highly cited papers. The results show that judging from cited characteristics, the number of composite citations of highly cited papers from CNKI is in the forefront of similar domestic journals, but the number of international citations is small. From the perspective of characteristics of the papers, the research topics of high-cited papers mainly focus on major issues and hot issues in national social economy. Young and middle-aged professors and associate professors are the main force in the creation of highly cited papers; strong cooperation and joint cooperation of multi-units and multi-authors have become a trend; high-cited papers are mainly published in national Chinese core journals and CSSCI journals, most of which are published in journals sponsored by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; the high citation of the papers is closely related to the digitalization development level of the journals. To this end, it is recommended that domestic academic evaluation institutions publish a comprehensive citation list of academic papers every year, and to promote the internationalization of journals and the internationalization of academic papers; to pay attention to the organic combination of topic selection, authors and paper quality of high-cited papers; to recognize the development orientation of journals, and to combine their own conditions and advantages to make appointments for potentially high-cited papers; to integrate and optimize journal resources, to open up the development model of digitalization of international and domestic journals, and to realize the rapid dissemination and sharing of digital resources of journals.