Working Paper: NBER ID: w16274
Authors: Robert A. Margo
Abstract: Written in celebration of the upcoming 100th anniversary of the American Economic Review (February 2011), this paper recounts the history of the journal. The recounting has an analytic core that sees the American Economic Association as an organization supplying goods and services to its members, one of which is the AER. Early in its history the AER was a multi-purpose publication with highly disparate content. Over time the economics profession expanded and more economics research was produced, primarily in the form of journal articles. The AER accommodated this shift by allocating more resources to the refereeing and editing process and more space, absolutely and relatively, in the AER to research papers. Historically, the latter was accomplished mostly by moving other content (for example, book reviews) out most of which the AEA continued to supply elsewhere. Despite these shifts, the ratio of papers published in the AER to those submitted - a proxy for the acceptance rate - has declined precipitously over the past half-century.
Keywords: American Economic Review; economic history; economics research; American Economic Association
JEL Codes: B0; N0; N32
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| Expansion of the economics profession after World War II (A11) | Significant rise in the production of economics research articles (E23) |
| Increase in research output (O39) | Changes in the AER's operational practices (L93) |
| Increased submissions (G34) | Lower acceptance rate (R19) |