Publishing Economics: How Slow? Why Slow? Is Slow Productive? How to Fix Slow?

Abstract

Economics publishing proceeds much more slowly than in the natural sciences, and more slowly than in the other social sciences and finance. It is relatively even slower at the extremes. Much of the lag, especially at the extremes, arises from authors’ dilatory behavior in revisions. Additional rounds of resubmissions at top economics journals are related to additional citations; but conditional on resubmission, the delays are unrelated to greater scholarly attention. We offer several proposals for speeding publication, including no-revision policies such as Economic Inquiry’s, the use of “cascading referee reports,” limits on authors’ time revising, and limits on editors waiting for dilatory referees. (JEL A11, B29)