A Century of American Economic Review ∗ Benno Torgler and Marco Piatti Abstract: Using information collected from American Economic Review publications of the last 100 years, we try to provide answers to various questions: Which are the top AER publishing institutions and countries? Which are the top AER papers based on citation success? How frequently is someone able to publish in AER? How equally is citation success distributed? Who are the top AER publishing authors? What is the level of cooperation among the authors? What drives the alphabetical name ordering? What are the individual characteristics of the AER authors, editors, editorial board members, and referees? How frequently do women publish in AER? What is the relationship between academic age, publication performance, and citation success? What are the paper characteristics? What influences the level of technique used in articles? Do connections have an influence on citation success? Who receives awards? Can awards increase the probability of publishing in AER at a later stage? JEL Classification: A10, A110, B00, B31, B40, I23, N01, J00, Z00 Keywords: American Economic Review, publishing economics, rankings, cooperation, authors, editors, board members, referees, connections, awards, paper characteristics, economic history, history of economic thought ∗For this article, a third party tossed a coin to determine the order of the authors’ names. Both are affiliated with the School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology, GPO Box 2434, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia. Benno Torgler is also affiliated with CREMA—Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (Switzerland); CESifo (Germany); and the National Centre for Econometric Research (Australia). For helpful comments, suggestions, and excellent research support, thanks are due to Ho Fai Chan. For outstanding and detailed comments and suggestions, thanks are due to Julia Angelica and Alison Macintyre. Please address all correspondence to Benno Torgler ([email protected]). 1 THE TRAGEDY OF FAUST PART I FAUST …And here I stand, With all my lore, Poor fool, no wiser than before. 1. Introduction Scholarly journals play a crucial role in the communication of scientific knowledge and new ideas. As Anne-Wil Harzing (author of The Publish or Perish Book) points out in a 2002 article, “[a]cademics and practitioners alike turn to academic articles as a reliable source of information” (127). Recently, however, the academic system has become even more competitive, producing a situation in which “graduate students and assistant professors are under extreme time pressure. In some cases, it is an ‘all or nothing’ issue: either they are able to publish in a good refereed journal, or they have to bury their dream of an academic career” (Bruno S. Frey 2005: 178).1 This paper takes a very close look at the American Economic Review (AER), the first journal of the American Economic Association. Created in 1911, AER is one of the top economics journals and has substantially influenced the economics landscape over the last 100 years. Economics journals began emerging a century after Adam Smith’s 1776 publication in Europe of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations 1 In February 2011, Maastricht University’s School of Business and Economics ran the following ad in JOE (Job Openings for Economists) for a tenured full professor: “Applicants should have proven their high research quality through publications in high-ranked peer reviewed journals. The ideal candidate will have published in the top-5. The successful candidate is expected to continue publishing in high-ranked journals. In addition, the candidate is expected to actively engage in securing research grants on a national and international level. The successful candidate is expected to be willing to teach in the area of economic theory and behavior at the undergraduate and graduate level. The language of instruction is English. The successful candidate is also expected to actively participate in the self-administration of the department” (see http://www.aeaweb.org/joe/listing.php?JOE_ID=201102_395195). 2 (Arthur W. Diamond 1988). Previously, serious economics were covered only in books or nonspecialist periodicals. The first fully professional journal in the U.S., the Quarterly Journal of Economics, came into being in 1886 (George J. Stigler, Stephen M. Stigler, and Claire Friedland 1965). Two additional U.S. publications that today are leading journals in the field were founded within the next 15 years (AER and then the Journal of Political Economy in 1892). However, as Stigler, Stigler, and Friedland (1995: 332) note, the “birth of the English-language journals slightly lags the development of economics as an academic calling. In the 1890s, there were perhaps a half dozen professorships of economics in Britain and probably no more than two or three dozen in the United States.” Interestingly, at his testimonial dinner (“Remarks” 1941), the first AER editor Davis Rich Dewey explained that when he was invited to undertake the managing editorship of the American Economic Review, he “demurred, partly on the grounds that I did not read easily foreign languages. The chief qualification I possessed was that I had edited the quarterly of the American Statistical Association during its first fifteen years. Fortunately, French and German statistical tables could be easily deciphered. It was far otherwise with the journals conducted by Schmoller and Conrad. I was, however, assured that the Association wished to publish an American economic journal and that my objection was not an outstanding defect” (viii). The first article in AER, entitled “Some Unsettled Problems of Irrigation,” was published in 1911 by a distinguished female economist, Katharine Coman (1857–1915), who in the early 1880s, was the first American woman to become a professor of statistics (Gerard F. Vaughn 2004). During the early 1900s, she also chaired the Department of Economics and was Dean of Wellesley College. Three papers in the first AER issue in 2011 were dedicated as commentaries to Coman’s contribution (see Elinor Ostrom 2011, Gary D. Libecap 2011, 3 and Robert N. Stavins 2011).2 According to Dewey, the inaugural issue led to no end of trouble (as quoted in Ann Mari May and Robert W. Dimand 2009), a situation that has been referred to as the Cross/Eaves Controversy.3 Davis Rich Dewey was in charge of managing AER for 30 years (between1911 and 1940), a longer tenure than any other editor since. In the same testimonial dinner speech, he emphasized his situation at the time: “When I assumed the duties of managing editor, I was past middle age and had settled down to the routine of teaching undergraduate students. I had no graduate students with whom I could soar into distant stratospheres where dynamic principles seem to contradict those which operate upon this lowly earth. Although I had no competency for empyreal flights, I enjoyed and even envied the tales which these aeronautical economists, with their helical ascents, brought back. A few of these are nose- divers as well, and I read with some satisfaction that these nose-divers, in pulling out from the dive, have a rush of blood from the head to the feet and the flyer often blacks out into unconsciousness. In this way you supplemented the pleasures of my later life; and for this I again give you my most hearty thanks” (“Remarks” 1941: vii). One key task of a new journal is to distinguish itself from those journals already in existence. In addressing this task, Dewey points out, he “had no clear answer, but believed 2 Elinor Ostrom (2011: 49), for example, points out that “Coman described tough collective-action problems half a century before Mancur Olson (1965) and Garrett Hardin (1968: 49) identified the challenging theoretical problem facing many groups.” Likewise, Gary D. Libecap (2011: 64) stresses that “[t]hese same issues have relevance today, 100 years later, in the face of growing concern about the availability of fresh water world-wide as demand grows and as supplies become more uncertain due to the potential effects of climate change.” Robert N. Stavins (2011: 81) echoes these sentiments by beginning his article as follows: “As the first decade of the twenty-first century comes to a close, the problem of the commons is more central to economics and more important to our lives than a century ago when Katharine Coman led off the first issue of the American Economic Review with her examination of ‘Some Unsettled Problems of Irrigation’ (Coman 1911). Since that time, 100 years of remarkable economic progress have accompanied 100 years of increasingly challenging problems.” 3 A critical review by Ira Cross of a book by Lucile Eaves was the starting point for this controversy. It prompted a reaction from Eaves, who saw it as an unjust attack and mobilized a large number of economists in her defense. This reaction led to a debate on the length of a reply. After a shortened form was published, Cross exploded because he did not receive an advance copy of Eaves’ response. He then sought the chance to submit a reply in order to have the last word. Dewey was then bombarded with letters from Eaves expressing her opinion (for a detailed discussion see Ann Mari May and Robert W. Dimand 2009). 4 that, if possible, the new Review should serve as a working tool for the hundreds of graduate students who were on their way to becoming teachers of economics; and secondly that the Review should be the organ of the members of the Association rather than the organ of the editors” (“Remarks” 1941: ix). Since then, AER has had 9 additional editors: Paul T. Homan (1941–1951),4 Bernard F. Haley (1952–1962), John G. Gurley (1963–1968), George H. Borts (1969–1980), Robert W.