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NBER: editing (fwd)
Subject: editing (fwd)
From: Don Fullerton (dfullert@eco.utexas.edu)
Date: Sun May 13 2001 - 08:57:16 EDT
To members of the PE program and the EE list (with apologies to those
on both lists who may receive this message twice):
You may have heard that Joe Herriges and I were selected by the AERE
Board of Directors to become the new editors of JEEM, "pending
negotiations about support from Academic Press." Well, those negotiations
have not gone well, and the question has been raised about starting a new
"Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists"
(JAERE). Some reasons are discussed in the attached article from the
Economist, and in the attached paper by Ted Bergstrom (forthcoming in the
Journal of Economic Perspectives). These reading are highly recommended.
Meanwhile, I got an offer to become one of the founding editors of the
Journal of Economic Analysis and Policy (JEAP), a new electronic-only
journal published by BEPress. I could not just "sit" on this offer
indefinitely while waiting on these protracted negotiations between AP and
AERE. For reasons described below, I have decided to exit the
negotiations and instead to help edit the JEAP (along with Kyle Bagwell of
Columbia, Aaron Edlin of Berkeley, and Ben Hermalin of Berkeley). Please
look at www.bepress.com to read about several important innovations of
this Journal: guaranteed 10-week turnaround, the authors and reviewers'
bank, instant publication upon acceptance, and simultaneous consideration
at four quality-rated journals, so there's no need to start over with new
reports from the next journal down your list. The new journal is already
accepting submissions, so please send us your new research. Thanks. Don
Don Fullerton dfullert@eco.utexas.edu
Department of Economics phone: (512) 475-8519
University of Texas fax: (512) 471-3510
Austin, TX 78712-1173 home: (512) 329-9881
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Fullerton
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 6 May 2001 20:21:26 -0500 (CDT)
From: Don Fullerton <dfullert@eco.utexas.edu>
To: Anna Alberini <aalberini@arec.umd.edu>,
Brian Copeland <copeland@econ.ubc.ca>, Joe Herriges <jaherrig@iastate.edu>,
Larry Karp <karp@are.berkeley.edu>, Charles F. Mason <Bambuzlr@uwyo.edu>,
Steve Polasky <spolasky@apec.umn.edu>,
Anastasios Xepapadeas <xepapad@ermis.soc.uoc.gr>,
Kerry Smith <vksmith@ARE1.CALS.NCSU.EDU>, David Austin <austin@rff.org>,
Carol Adaire Jones <cjones@ers.usda.gov>,
Bob Deacon <deacon@econ.ucsb.edu>, George Parsons <gparsons@udel.edu>,
John Loomis <jloomis@ceres.agsci.colostate.edu>,
Charles Kolstad <kolstad@econ.ucsb.edu>, Raymond Kopp <kopp@rff.org>,
"Kealy, Mary Jo/PHL" <mkealy@ch2m.com>,
Nancy Bockstael <nancyb@arec.umd.edu>, Richard Carson <rcarson@ucsd.edu>,
Marilyn Voigt <Voigt@rff.org>, John Whitehead <WhiteheadJ@mail.ecu.edu>
Subject: editing
Dear Co-Editors and AERE Board Members:
This is a hard email to write. I started out with great enthusiasm
about the prospect of becoming an editor of JEEM, as you can tell from the
proposal that Joe Herriges and I submitted last September, and as you can
tell from my many contributions over the past several months: recruiting
this top-notch bunch of co-editors, meetings in New Orleans, negotiations
with AP, and discussions about a new journal. But I have now decided to
bow out. I will try to describe several reasons, rather than leave it
totally unexplained.
First, I became more and more disenchanted with AP during these
negotiations. They seemed to expect to continue paying the 15-year-old
level of support ($7000) forever, as they asked what we were doing to
deserve more. They rely on university provision of offices and editorial
assistants, even while they are making millions of dollars of profits.
Ted Bergstrom's paper was an eye-opening experience for me. I began to
have trouble with the prospect of asking each potential referee to provide
free services to help improve the quality of a journal that is making so
much money for this private company. If I had read Ted's paper before
September, I probably would not have participated in the first place. I
do not want to edit for AP, but I do not want to "force" your decision
about starting a new journal by saying I will not edit for AP.
Moreover, as courageous and as worthwhile as it sounds to start a new
journal, I now realize that I'm not prepared for that prospect either. I
think that a new journal is the "right" thing to do, for reasons outlined
in Ted's paper (increasing social welfare by providing this valuable
information at a low price that reflects its low marginal cost). But it
requires somebody who is willing to devote themselves to the voluntary
provision of this public good: many hours of thankless efforts on behalf
of the Association with little appreciation, low financial reward, and
delayed recognition for having done it.
And I might still have proceeded with this project anyway, even with
all of these misgivings, except for the final straw, a "better" offer.
Well, I think it's a better offer, but it does have a very high variance.
I thought for a long time about the possibility of doing both, but that
would have been crazy. So now, instead of waiting to see the outcome of
the AP negotiations or even the AERE Board's vote, I have accepted an
offer to become one of the founding editors of the Journal of Economic
Analysis and Policy. This is one of three new electronic-only journals of
BEPress, mentioned in Ted Bergstrom's paper as one of the types of
solutions to the current journal problem. See www.bepress.com to read
about several other innovations of this journal (which you might want to
consider for a new AERE journal). It is a general journal, for applied
micro, rather than a field journal. It will be cheaper for libraries and
may eventually pay the editors better. I hope it works; I hope you will
submit papers to this new journal; I hope you don't hate me. Especially
to the co-editors I helped to recruit, I hope you carry on the important
work of the Association to provide a high-quality outlet for environmental
research, whether that be through JEEM or a new journal.
Thanks. Don
Don Fullerton dfullert@eco.utexas.edu
Department of Economics phone: (512) 475-8519
University of Texas fax: (512) 471-3510
Austin, TX 78712-1173 home: (512) 329-9881
http://www.eco.utexas.edu/faculty/Fullerton
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