[学术讨论] 【转】The Internal Politics of Journal Editing [复制链接]

I havebeen invited to write an essay for The American Economist on my experiences asfounder and editor of the Cambridge University Press journal, MacroeconomicDynamics. I have decided to focus the essay on my experiences in starting upthe journal. Few economists, who have not themselves started up a new journal,are aware of the nature of the process and its sometimes very complicatedacademic politics.

1. TheConflict

As isknown to many economists, there was a conflict between another well-knownjournal and its society at around the time that I started up MacroeconomicDynamics in 1996-1997. The journal was the Journal of Economic Dynamics andControl (JEDC). The society was called the Society for Economic Dynamics andControl (SEDC). I was a member of the society and knew people involved on bothsides of the conflict. The society wanted to change that journal’s editors. Butthe society did not own the journal. Elsevier owned the journal, and they werenot willing to remove the journal’s existing editors. Consequently the societyapproached Academic Press with a proposal to start up a new journal, with thesociety being authorized to appoint the editorial board. Tom Cooley was to bethe managing editor, and there was to be a heavier emphasis on real businesscycle theory than was the case with the JEDC. Academic Press turned down theproposal.

Therewere bad feelings about this conflict, both within the society and on thejournal’s editorial board. I called Ed Prescott, regarding the society’sconcerns, and Steve Turnovsky, regarding the journal’s concerns. I explainedthat I could start up a new journal that would be purely scientific and neutralregarding the differences of opinion between the society and the journal. Iexplained that I could propose it to Cambridge U. Press, with which I had goodrelations as editor of one of that publisher’s monograph series. I was advisedby Ed and Steve that it would be a good idea, and I should do it as a possiblemeans of solving the problem. I was concerned about the commitment of my timethat would be required, and whether that commitment was justified. As a result,I asked Ed whether the plans to try to start up another new journal by thesociety would end, if I produced a neutral scientific macroeconomic journal,with the name Macroeconomic Dynamics. He said that yes it would stop and thatthe “plans” were only talk.

2.First New Journal

Iproposed the new journal to Cambridge U Press, and they accepted the proposal.Next I needed to select a Board of Editors. I selected a group of AdvisoryEditors and Associate Editors, with the intent to span all areas of goodmacroeconomic science, without any prejudice or identifiable “agenda” inmethodology, geography, or politics. Then the problems began. I was lobbied byvarious Advisory Editors and Associate Editors to make changes in the editorialboard. The degree of factionalism surprised me. Not only were there attempts tochange the balance towards a particular methodological or political view, butsometimes to change the balance geographically, nationalistically, regionally,racially, or ethnically. There also were gender based pressures. Sometimes thelobbying was directed at perceived underrepresentation of a particular group.When I found that to be justified, I asked for suggestions of economists whoshould be added, and invited additional board members from that group. Moredisturbing were pressures to eliminate a minority from representation, so thatthe journal would be captured by a particular group, as has been the case withmany other journals, such as the Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, theCanadian Journal of Economics, the Asian Economic Journal, and the Journal ofAustrian Economics. I was particularly surprised by the lobbying from some ofthe European board members to discredit and thereby eliminate board membersfrom other European countries. Since a fundamental purpose of this journal wasto avoid becoming identified with any such faction or group, I often did theexact opposite by increasing the size of the minority so that the minority nolonger could be marginalized or ignored. When it became clear that attempts toeliminate a minority were counterproductive, that kind of lobbying ended. As aresult, the Editorial Board became very large and very diverse, with only thesophistication and high tech competency of all members holding them together.To this day, the editorial board of Macroeconomic Dynamics is unusually large.

3.Editorial Board Selection Problems

Allseemed to be peaceful, and the journal startup was successful. I then wasinformed by Ed Prescott during a telephone call that he objected to the factthat there were econometricians on the Board of Advisory Editors. He did notobject to the fact that the Associate Editors included econometricians, but hedid not feel that I should be listening to the advice of econometricians on theBoard of Advisory Editors. The Advisory Editors included a minority of econometricians,such as Peter Phillips and Ron Gallant, who are among the world’s mostimportant econometricians. Ed and his coauthor, Finn Kydland, also were amongthe Advisory Editors. At the same time, Cambridge University Press told me thatthe Board of Advisory Editors was too large. Based upon the pressure fromCambridge University press and based upon my deep respect for Ed Prescott’scontributions to the field of macroeconomics, I removed from the Board ofAdvisory Editors all of the econometricians, except for two: Mark Watson andAdrian Pagan, whose contributions to macroeconomics have been major. Evidently,that was not good enough for Ed, who resigned from the Board. His coauthor,Finn Kydland, did not resign. The SEDC began again to plan for its own newjournal.

4.Second New Journal

TheSEDC revised its proposal to Academic Press for a new journal. This timeinstead of proposing only one Editor, Tom Cooley, the society proposed a Boardof Coeditors, including all of the present and recent past presidents of thesociety, such as Ed Prescott and Tom Sargent, along with Tom Cooley. Althoughit was obvious that the coeditors were largely “window dressing” and Tom Cooleywas to be the Managing Editor, Academic Press accepted the new proposal. Thetitle of the new journal was to be Economic Dynamics, and the society was tochange its name to the Society for Economic Dynamics (SED), with the words “andControl” removed. But Steve Turnovsky, who had close ties with the JEDC, toldme that the proposed title of the new SED journal was objectionable to the JEDCand its publisher, since the JEDC was divided into two sections, one of whichwas named “Economic Dynamics.” As a result, Elsevier, the publisher of theJEDC, had its attorneys contact Academic Press with objections to the proposedtitle for the new journal. A few weeks later, Steve Turnovsky called me on thephone to inform me that Academic Press had decided to change the name of thenew journal to Dynamic Macroeconomics. I was under the impression that theinformation about the new title came from one of Tom Cooley’s students. Stevesuggested to me that I inform Cambridge U. Press about the new title. I calledCambridge U. Press and told them that they should be aware of the fact thatAcademic Press was planning to start up a new journal with the name DynamicMacroeconomics, while I was Editor for Cambridge University Press of thejournal, Macroeconomic Dynamics.

5.Resolution of the Journal-Title-Selection Conflict

Followingthe call by the Cambridgeattorneys to Academic Press about objections to the name DynamicMacroeconomics, Steve Turnovsky unexpectedly received a phone call fromAcademic Press asking him for a suggestion for the new journal’s title. Stevesuggested the title, Review of Economic Dynamics. In making this suggestion, hehad in mind a somewhat parallel (and harmonious) situation by which the Journalof International Economics was published by Elsevier and the Review ofInternational Economics was published by Blackwell. Academic Press acceptedthat suggestion, and the journal, Review of Economic Dynamics (RED), was bornand has subsequently evolved into a fine journal. Instead of just the JEDC,there now were three journals with related objectives, the JEDC, RED, and MD.All that transpired had its origins in the famous Kydland and Prescott articleon the time inconsistency of optimal control policy, since that article hadmotivated much of the former SEDC’s objections to the JEDC’s publication ofpapers on optimal control policy and to the role of optimal control theorists,such as David Kendrick and Steve Turnovsky, in founding and editing the JEDC.

6.Interviews Series

At thetime that I started up MD, I had to select the sections to be included, such asBook Reviews, Surveys, and Notes. I observed that no peer-reviewed professionaljournal was publishing interviews with macroeconomists or microeconomists,although Econometric Theory was occasionally publishing interviews with econometriciansand the American Statistician was publishing interviews with statisticians. Idecided to add an Interviews Section, which occasionally would publishinterviews with exceptionally important macroeconomists and with those famousmicroeconomists whose work has beeninfluential in macroeconomics. The choice of those to be interviewed was todepend upon heavy support for the possible invitation by the journal’s AdvisoryEditors. Problemsarose immediately. It was proposed that the first economist to be interviewedshould be Wassily Leontief, since he was at an advanced age and his health wasfailing. When I proposed interviewing Leontief to the Advisory Editors, therewas much opposition to the invitation on the grounds that he was primarily amicroeconomist. With little time left to debate the matter and because of hisimportance in the profession, I decided to adopt a very broad definition ofmacroeconomics as aggregated microeconomics. There was no other outlet forpublication of interviews of famous microeconomists. Leontief’s interview wasthe first that we published.

Anothermicroeconomist interviewed early in the evolution of the interviews series wasDavid Cass at the University of Pennsylvania. Hisinterview included use of the four letter f word in a hostile statement about aformer dean at Carnegie Mellon University.The dean’s name was mentioned. Cambridge University Press called me and askedif I could get David to tone down his language. He refused and demandedpublication of the word exactly as included, on the grounds that the interviewwas a quotation that could not be changed by the editor, copy editor, or thepublisher. Cambridge University did not likethe explanation, but agreed that it had to be accepted. The controversial wordswere typeset in the interview as “f---- you.”

Fromthen on, when I invited anyone to be interviewed, I explained the Cassprecedent and the fact that those interviewed would be able to say whateverthey wanted in a peer-reviewed journal without any peer review at all.Subsequently everyone I’ve invited to be interviewed has accepted, except forJean-Michel Grandmont, who complained that the interviews included too manyAmericans and not enough Europeans. I pointed out that a large percentage ofthose we had interviewed were born in Europe and moved to America beforewinning their Nobel Prizes (e.g., Leontief and Modigliani). I did notunderstand how Jean-Michel’s refusal to be interviewed in France was in the best interests of increasingthe number of Europeans interviewed within Europe.

Theinterviews series turned into a collection of interviews of many of theprofession’s most important stars. As a result of popular demand, PaulSamuelson and I recently collected some of the most interesting of thoseinterviews into a book, Inside the Economist’s Mind. Translations of that book,Barnett and Samuelson (2007), have so far been published in Korean, Russian,Chinese, and German, and the book has its own blog.

7. ThePresent and Future

Whilethe morphing of one journal into three had its origins in an internal conflictwithin the profession, the driving force for growth of all three journals sincethen has been the explosive growth in high quality, scientific research inmacroeconomics throughout the world, now including mainland China as well asTaiwan and Hong Kong. All three journals have continued growing rapidly andharmoniously, and in fact I am about to add seven new associate editors to thejournal’s editorial board to handle the growthin submissions to the journal I edit. Also a supplement series that began ayear ago now is growing rapidly along with the regular issues.

Did Iexpect any of this when I agreed to start up Macroeconomic Dynamics? Not at all.