CONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC POLICY 2011 Editor\'s Report

Contemporary Economic Policy 2011 Editor’s Report San Diego, California, CEP sponsored 26 sessions out of 279 (9% of the total sessions). I would like to thank former co-editor Jack Hou for his efforts in organizing 20 of these sessions. The WEAI conferences provided approximately 9% of our total manuscript submissions for 2011. During the 2011 publishing cycle 199 manuscripts were submitted for review to CEP. There were 20 manuscripts submitted from the San Diego and Brisbane conferences and 179 non-conference submissions. At this time, 25 manuscripts have been accepted for publication, 138 rejected with 36 decisions pending. The overall acceptance rate is expected to be approximately 20%. An important contribution to enhancing the quality of the journal is the refereeing process. CEP uses a double-blind process with the objective of obtaining three referee reports for each manuscript. As Table 2 demonstrates we are making a significant effort to contact referees and make sure that the editorial team has well grounded input in order to make informed decisions regarding the manuscripts. During 2011 we received 430 referee reports that have helped to provide constructive input to improve accepted manuscripts as well as input for authors of rejected manuscripts. Refereeing is also the major challenge in providing timely feedback to authors. During 2011 we requested 892 referee reports. These numbers indicate that we have improved in targeting individuals that are willing and able to review for the journal as our success rate remains approximately 50%. Individuals who have generously provided their time as referees for the journal are listed in Table 3. The time to decision for authors is a critical variable for most journals but is particularly important for CEP since the objective is to inform current policy debates. The editorial team places an extremely high priority on minimizing the time to first decision so that important contributions to the policy debates are available as soon as possible and faculty on tenure clocks have timely feedback on submissions. The average time from manuscript submission to first decision was approximately 70 days for the first 100 manuscripts handled by the new editorial team in 2011. Most faculty are required to report the quality of the journals where they publish. The most

Volume 29, published quarterly in 2011, contained 46 articles (638 pages) contributed by 90 authors and co-authors from a variety of topic areas as defined by the Journal of Economic Literature classification system. Table 1 provides a distribution of published articles classified by JEL topic area. THE EDITORIAL TEAM

2011 saw a complete makeover of the CEP editorial team. The 2010 the editorial team included Editor in Chief Wade Martin and co-editors Robert Michaels from California State University, Fullerton, Jack W. Hou and Steve Yamarik from California State University, Long Beach, Brad R. Humphreys from the University of Alberta, and Robert P. Berrens from the University of New Mexico. Beginning in July 2011 Brad Humphreys became Editor in Chief. The new editorial team includes Brock Blomberg from Claremont McKenna College, Craig Depken from the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, and Michael Ward from the University of Texas at Arlington. The new editorial team thanks the previous editorial team for their outstanding service to the journal and their continued work on previously submitted articles still in the publication process. I personally thank Wade Martin for his mentoring, advice, help, and outstanding stewardship of CEP. The previous and new editor and co-editors are very appreciative of the significant contribution to the success of CEP made by Kaulene Gellerman, editorial assistant. CEP could not function without her efforts. The editorial team also thanks the authors, the referees, the editorial board and the staff at Wiley-Blackwell Publishing for their efforts in making Contemporary Economic Policy an important resource in economics, public administration and to policy analysts worldwide. JOURNAL STATISTICS

Active participation in the annual conferences of the Western Economic Association International is encouraged by editors and members of the editorial board. At the 2011 annual meeting in 629 Contemporary Economic Policy (ISSN 1465-7287) Vol. 30, No. 4, October 2012, 629–633

doi:10.1111/j.1465-7287.2012.00344.x © 2012 Western Economic Association International

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CONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC POLICY

frequently cited statistics are impact factors. The impact factor from the Journal Citation Reports ® (JCR) remains the most widely used. In general, impact factors are measures of the number of times papers published in a journal are cited in journals. Although the usefulness of impact factors as a measure of journal quality has been called into question, impact factors remain the de facto standard for assessing journal quality. CEP ’s impact factor in the 2010 JCR was 0.523 (202 of 302 journals in the Economics subject category. Other general interest journals ranked near CEP based on impact factor in the 2010 JCR were the Southern Economic Journal (0.541, 196/303), and Applied Economics (0.424, 216/303). CEP ’s 5 year impact factor was 0.792 (153/303). Other general interest journals ranked near CEP based on 5 year impact factor in the 2010 JCR were again the Southern Economic Journal (0.818, 149/303), and Applied Economics (0.740, 161/303). BEST ARTICLE AWARD

As with every volume, a number of articles published in Volume 29 deserve special recognition. The editorial team wishes to recognize the following article of particular relevance to the policy discussions regarding the effectiveness of financial incentives on organ donation, an economic policy issue of growing importance.

Best Article Award: Allison J. Wellington and Edward A. Sayre, “An Evaluation of Financial Incentives for Organ Donations in the United States”, 29 (1), 1-13. doi: 10.1111/ j.1465-7287. 2010.00197.x PUBLISHING AND THE JOURNAL

Because of our online submission and reviewing process, the research of our authors is becoming available more rapidly and we have found this change has resulted in the timely review of manuscripts on average. We have also continued to make the research of our authors available in advance of publication through Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com) or on the journal’s website (http://www. wiley.com/ bw/journal.asp?ref=1074-3529 or www.weai.org). We encourage you to sign up for online notification of articles in your area of interest. There are currently 44 accepted manuscripts available through Early View at the journal’s web site. This early access has helped us to meet our objective of making research contributions available in a timely manner that enhances the role of CEP in contemporary policy debates. Also, we have recently increased our page budget so that the time to print will be reduced and the backlog of articles reduced.

Brad R. Humphreys, Editor TABLE 1 2011 Manuscripts Published by JEL* Topic Area Code # Articles

JEL∗ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R Z

Code

Field General Economics & and Teaching Methodology & History of Economic Thought Mathematical & Quantitative Economics Microeconomics Macroeconomics & Monetary Economics International Economics Financial Economics Public Economics Health, Education & Welfare Labor & Demographic Economics Law & Economics Industrial Organization Business Admin. & Business Economics, Marketing, Accounting Economic History Economic Development, Technological Change & Growth Economic Systems Agricultural & Natural Resource Economics Urban, Rural & Regional Economics Other Special Topics Total

∗ Journal of Economic Literature.

Primary Code

All Codes

2 7 5 2 1 5 8 8 2 1

9 4 7 4 4 13 8 13 1 12

2 2

45

1 8 1 4 3 1 93

66

151 24 129 46 0

26.29%

54

148 10 122 36 0

22.78%

SD/Syd 578

384 853

336

78

Tahoe

429 748

380

108

99–00

7

2

98–99

175 78

158 92

Van

33

290

324 430

Van 477

00–01

26.29%

138 18 129 46 0

73

10

156 55

SF

31

238

286 412

SF 451

01–02

26.92%

151 24 114 42 0

66

7

184 78

90

358

453 558

Sea/Tp 594

02–03

29.89%

138 18 130 55 0

73

10

145 55

∗∗

16

225

242 543

Denver 563

03–04

35.86%

170 14 93 52 0

88

5

158 77

Van & HK

19

332

351 764

Van/HK 788

04–05

37.33%

143 2 94 56 0

95

6

144 42

SF

41

240

245 396

SF 414

05–06

29.16%

150 8 102 42 0

86

7

111 57

SD & Beijing

06–07

15

275

260 627

SD/Bej 643

2009*

2010

2011

111 0 144 47 0

71

0

194 40

43

249

291 706

Sea 791

07–08

60

423

483 931

Van 1033

09

24.60%

191 7 147 47 0

128

0

211 54

51

360

413 673

Port 741

10

21–23%

194 64 164 45 2

163

0

188 26

53

375

430 805

SD/Bris 892

11

13–20%

211 98 138 26 36

179

0

199 20

Hawaii Van & Kyoto Portland SD & Brisbane

27.92% 24.60%

144 0 80 31 0

86

3

191 55

Seattle

2003–2004 2004–2005 2005–2006 2006–2007 2007–2008 2008

Seattle & Taipei Denver

2002–2003

Abbreviations: SF = San Francisco; HK = Hong Kong; Van = Vancouver; SD = San Diego; Sea = Seattle; Syd = Sydney; Tp = Taipei; Bk = Bangkok; Bej = Beijing; Bris = Brisbane ∗ Converting to calendar year beginning January 2008 (some totals duplicated in conversion to calendar year from conference year 2007-2008). ∗∗ includes 8 from the 2003 Taipei conference.

Refs Contacted Reports Requested Reports Received Referees Contacted Referees Sent Report Referees > 1 Report

REFEREES

Total Submitted New Conference manuscripts w/o fee New Conference manuscripts with fee New NonConference manuscripts New Submittals Resubmittals Rejected Accepted Decisions Pending Acceptance Rate

SD & Sydney

1999–2000 2000–2001 2001–2002

TABLE 2 1999-2011 Manuscript Acquisition and Disposition

EDITOR’S REPORT 631

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CONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC POLICY

TABLE 3 2011 Contemporary Economic Policy Referees Adkisson, Rick Ahlfeldt, Gabriel M. Ahmed, Rasha Allcott, Hunt Allen, Linda Amialchuk, Aliaksandr An, Lian Anderson, John E. Apergis, Nicholas Archibald, Robert Asdrubali, Pierfederico Ashby, Nathan Atolia, Manoj Austin, David Babcock, Philip Baird, Sarah Balding, Christopher Barcellos, Silvia Bastos, Paulo Baughman, Reagan Becker, Torbjorn Belke, Ansgar Bell, Kathleen P. B´en´etrix, Agust´ın Berkowitz, Jason Bewley, Truman Biddle, Elyce Anne Blonigen, Bruce Bonanno, Alessandro Born, Patricia Borsch-Supan, Axel Bradbury, John Bradley, Ralph Brasington, David Breffle, Bill Brorsen, Wade Brown, Heather Buchmueller, Thomas Bulligan, Guido Burger, John D. Butcher, Kristin Caldara, Dario Caliendo, Frank Caner, Mehmet Canes, Michael E. Caplan, Arthur J. Carden, Art Carroll, Kathleen Castelli, Annalisa Chaloupka, Frank Chang, Pao-Li Chappell, Henry W. Che, XiaoGang Chen, Ku-Hsieh Chen, Sheng-Tung Chen, Yong Chen, Zhuo Chernomaz, Kirill Chiang, Eric P. Chit, Myint Moe Moe Chung, Hess Thomas Clark, Andrew Clark, Christopher Coates, Dennis Collins, Alan

Contessi, Silvio Cooke, Thomas Coric, Bruno Corman, Hope Cotti, Chad Crowder, William Cunningham, Scott Dastrup, Samuel Dave, Dhaval Davis, Michael Dawson, John W. Dawson, Peter de Resende, Carlos DeBoer, Larry Decker, Christopher Dehring, Carolyn DeLoach, Stephen B. DeSimone, Jeffrey Deskins, John Dincer, Oguzhan Ding, Hong Dixon, Robert Dobson, Carlyn Downward, Paul Driffield, Nigel Lewis Eckert, Andrew Eid, Jean Endress, Lee Engelhardt, Bryan Evans, Henry David Fang, Tony Farsi, Mehdi Fell, Harrison Fertig, Angela Finn, Adam Fleck, Robert Fleming, Michael Fletcher, Jason Ford, Jon Fox, Glenn Frame, W. Scott Freeman, Donald G. Fu, Tsu-tan Funkhouser, Ed Gersl, Adam Gitter, Seth Glick, Reuven Glitz, Albrecht Goff, Brian Gonz´alez, Libertad Gouskova, Elena Grant, Darren Grier, Kevin Groothuis, Peter Gurley-Calvez, Tami Gurses, Mehmet Haley, Ryan Hansen, Jason K. Hanssen, F. Andrew Hare, Denise Harrington, Donna Ramirez Harris, J. Michael Hayo, Bernd He, Qing He, Wei

Heckelman, Jac Hernandez-Verme, Paula Hetzel, Robert Hirata, Hideaki Ho, Lok Sang Hofer, Christian H¨olscher, Jens Holub, Tomas Horn, Brady Hryshko, Dima Huang, Ching-I. Huang, Fung-Mey Huang, Haifang Huang, Jr-Tsung Huang, Shu-Chin Hueng, C. James Humphreys, Brad R. Intriligator, Michael Ivanic, Maros Ivus, Olena Jackson, Terri Jansen, David-Jan Jarozinski, Marek Jeitschko, Thomas D. Jensen, Christian Jeon, Bang N. Jianakoplos, Nancy J¨urges, Hendrik Justesen, Mogens Kaiser, Brooks Kalenkoski, Charlene M. Kandogan, Yener Keen, Benjamin Kelly, David Kelly, Inas Rashad Kempkes, Gerhard Kessides, Ioannis Kim, Soyoung Kim, Sunghyun Henry Kirby, Chris Kirby, Douglas Klawitter, Marieka Klein, Daniel B. Kounetas, Kostas Kox, Henk Krautmann, Anthony C. Kugler, Preter Kumar, Alok Kupatadze, Alexander Larch, Mario Law, Siong Hook Lawson, Robert Lawson, Robert A. Lee, Yang Seung Lee, Young Hoon Lewis, Lynne Li, Yan Lien, Donald Light, Ivan Lin, C.-Y. Cynthia Lin, Shu-Chin Liu, Echu Liu, Haiyong Lord, William Lovenheim, Michael

EDITOR’S REPORT

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TABLE 3 Continued Lu, Wen-Cheng Lucas, Henry Luo, Zhehui Lusk, Jayson Macunovich, Diane Maggioni, Mario Markandya, Anil Markowitz, Sara Marlow, Michael Mason, Andrew Matheson, Victor McCannon, Bryan C. McGarrity, Joe McGarvey, Mary Mckenzie, Jordi McLeod, Logan McShane, Michael Meade, Ellen Mehrotra, Aaron Nikolai Meyerhoefer, Chad Miles, William Miller, Amalia Mills, Bradford Mohanty, Lisa Monaco, Kristen Montiel, Peter Moreno-Cruz, Juan Mortimer, Duncan Mu, Ren Murasko, Jason Murshed, Mansoob Nakosteen, Robert A. Neidell, Matthew Nelson, Jon Nelson, Michael A. Neuman, Kevin Noel, Michael Noonan, Douglas Simpson Nordas, Hildegunn Nyiwul, Linus Mabughi Obadic, Alka Okimoto, Tatsuyoshi Olivares, Marcello Osborne, Evan Owen, Dorian Pabilonia, Sabrina Pakko, Michael R. Parker, Elliott Peach, Jim Pecchenino, Rowena Pedace, Roberto

Perelman, Sergio Perez, Javier Pierce, Brooks Plassmann, Florenz Podgursky, Michael Price, Gregory Prinz, Joachim Pugatch, Todd Rassier, Dylan Rau, Tom´as Reagan, Patricia Redish, Angela Reece, William Reed, Bob Rees, Daniel I. Reimers, Hans-Eggert Richardson, Lilliard Rico, Jacinta Bernadette Ridley, David B. Robertson, Raymond ´ Romero-Avila, Diego Royer, Heather Ruge-Murcia, Francisco Rupp, Nicholas Ruseski, Jane E. Saglam, Yigit Sayek, Selin Scharff, Robert Scholten, Patrick A. Schorno, Patrick Schroeter, Christine Schularick, Moritz Scoppa, Vincenzo Scott, Frank Scotton, Carol Robinson Sette, Enrico Sewell, Ellen Sgro, Pasquale Shapiro, Matthew A. Shaw, W. Douglass Shimshack, Jay P. Smith, Constance Smyth, Russell Song, Shunfeng Sparber, Chad Stephenson, E. Frank Stewart, Hayden Stone, Daniel Frederick Strazicich, Mark Sturm, Jan-Egbert Suen, Wing

Sun, Chia-Hung Sun, Wei Surroca, Jordi Swidler, Steven Switzer, David Michael Tabarrok, Alexander Tambe, Sonny Tang, Yao Tefft, Nathan Thalheimer, Richard Theseira, Walter Thompson, Jeffrey Tomlin, Ben Toole, Andrew Topoleski, Julie Tramontana, Fabio Tran, Dang Tremblay, Carol Horton Tremblay, Victor J. Truman, Edwin Tsai, Chun-Li Tsakloglou, Panos Tucker, Michael Valev, Neven van Egteren, Henry van Lelyveld, Iman von Haefen, Roger Vuletin, Guilllermo Wagner, Rodrigo Waldkirch, Andreas Walker, Douglas M. Webb, Anthony Weill, Laurent West, James West, Sarah Willett, Thomas Wilson, Dennis P. Wooward, Richard Wu, Wefeng Yamarik, Steve Yang, Chih-Hai Yang, Doo Yong Yates, Andrew Young, Denise Yu, Xiaohua Zavodny, Madeline Zhang, Jungfu Zhang, Kevin Honglin Zhang, Xingyuan Zhao, Zhenxiang Zhou, Li Zotteri, Stefania