Thread by @JakeVigdor

Dear candidates for AEA elected office (@kearney_melissa, @drlisadcook, @OS_Mitchell, @MattGentzkow et al):

I'd like to instigate a series of candidate forums so that you might inform #econtwitter where you stand on important issues.

I will reach out to those not on @twitter.

While welcoming suggestions for important topics, and recognizing that inclusivity, gender, and race belong among them. I'd like to start with the state of publishing in the discipline.

Some basic stylized facts to start the discussion:

It's well documented that the submission-to-acceptance lag in the AER and other top journals has risen dramatically over the past 50 years. More than 1,000% in the case of the AER - from 8 weeks in 1981, when manuscripts were sent to reviewers by snail mail, to over 2 years.

Ellison (2002) related this trend to the rise of the R&R, a rarity as late as the early 80s. Today, accepted manuscripts in the AER most commonly undergo 2+ rounds of revision before acceptance. If anything, lags have grown longer in the 17 years since Ellison.

Our colleagues at sociology's flagship journal have taken a stance against the use of multiple rounds of revision, using the jargon of our discipline.

At JAMA, the flagship journal in medicine, the median time between submission and acceptance is 14 days.

Despite this trend, more authors are seeking to publish their work in the AER.

In 1972, 714 articles were submitted and 143 published.

In 2017, despite expanding the AER from 4 peer-reviewed issues to 11, the journal published only 130 manuscripts. Submissions exceeded 2,000.

The near-tripling of space in the AER has been accompanied by a near-tripling of the length of the average article.

The regular manuscripts of 1972 averaged 12.5 pages. In 2017, they averaged 35.

Meanwhile, the ratio of published articles to submissions has steadily declined.

While authors in every academic discipline compete for space in every discipline, other disciplines make more space.

The Journal of the American Chemical Society publishes weekly, 19,000 pages per year, over 2,000 articles per year.

With a ~2 month submit-to-acceptance lag.

Yes, the AEA has responded to this problem by adding 5 new journals in the past decade, for a grand total of 8 published by the association.

The American Chemical Society publishes over 60.

Junior economists chase an ever-more-elusive brass ring, an accolade that their senior colleagues obtained with three times higher probability and in one-tenth the amount of time.

What is your message to these junior economists, candidates?

A quick update: I've heard from one twitter-enabled candidate by DM, with an expression of interest in engaging on these questions very soon. I'll provide additional updates.

In the meantime, please DM with other topic suggestions for candidates to address!