2012 Report from the Managing editor
The Review of Economic Dynamics (RED) is the official journal of the Society for Economic Dynamics.
The journal publishes meritorious original contributions to dynamic economics. The scope of the journal
is intended to be broad and to reflect the view of the Society for Economic Dynamics that the field of
economics is unified by the scientific approach to economics. We publish contributions in any area of
economics provided they meet the highest standards of scientific research. In particular, RED publishes
original articles on applications of dynamic economic theory to a wide variety of problems in economics.
Related measurement and empirical papers are also welcomed.
Editorial Board Composition
Since last year, there have been a number of changes to the Editorial Board composition. Hector Chade
joined us as Associate Editor. Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde is now an Editor of the Journal. Special thanks,
on behalf of the Society, to Ellen McGrattan who has resigned from her position as Editor. Ellen served
the Review, as Associate Editor first, and then as Editor, since 1999. I am deeply grateful to Ellen for her
commitment, her professionalism, and for the time she devoted to RED throughout these years.
As of June 2012, the Editors of RED are: David Backus (Stern, NYU), Marco Bassetto (Chicago Fed),
Matthias Doepke (Northwestern University), Jesus Fernandez-Villaverde (University of Pennsylvania),
Urban Jermann (Wharton, University of Pennsylvania), and Martin Schneider (Stanford).
The Associate Editors are: Ariel Burnstein (UCLA), Hector Chade (ASU), Jan Eeckhout (UCL), Jonathan
Heathcote (Minneapolis Fed), Nir Jaimovich (Duke), Tim Kehoe (University of Minnesota), Ricardo Lagos
(NYU), Maurizio Mazzocco (UCLA), Virgiliu Midrigan (NYU), Matthew Mitchell (Rotman, University of
Toronto), Fabrizio Perri (University of Minnesota), Giorgio Primiceri (Northwestern University), Vincenzo Quadrini (Marshall, USC), Diego Restuccia (University of Toronto), Richard Rogerson (Princeton), Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé (Columbia University), Steve Williamson (Washington University, St. Louis),
and Christian Zimmermann (St. Louis Fed).
Turnaround Statistics
RED strives to deliver fast and efficient turnaround of manuscripts, without compromising the quality of
the refereeing process. Besides desk rejections, virtually all submitted manuscripts receive two referee
reports. In 2011, RED received 268 submissions. As of June 2012, all of these submissions had already
received at least a first decision. The mean processing time from submission to first decision was 7.6
weeks or 53 days. The table below describes the distribution of first decisions by type: desk reject, reject
after review, and revise and resubmit (which includes both minor and major revisions requested).
| Distribution of First Decision Times on 2011 Submissions |
| Number of decisions | Number of desk rejects | Number of rejects after review | Number of R&R |
| Total | 268 | 105 | 111 | 52 |
| Within 3 months | 61% | 100% | 40% | 27% |
| 3 to 4 months | 21% | 0% | 34% | 33% |
| 4 to 5 months | 11% | 0% | 14% | 27% |
| More than 5 months | 7% | 0% | 12% | 13% |
| Average days since submission | 53 | 6 | 102 | 112 |
Note that 82 percent of all submissions were dealt with within 4 months, and only 7% of all submissions
(or roughly 19 papers) took longer than 5 months. Often, these are difficult decisions, where the
Referees are split and the Editor deems it necessary calling upon a third Referee. Conditional on
receiving a R&R, the average time since manuscript submission was 112 days.
Among all the manuscripts with a final disposition in 2011, the acceptance rate was 9%, corresponding
to 24 articles. This acceptance rate, comparable to that of other top economics journals, reflects the fact
that only submissions of the highest quality are selected for publication in the Review. The continuous
rise of the Impact factor for the Review (see the next section) is proof of this commitment to constantly
improving our standards of publication.
Impact Factors
The table below shows two citation indexes for RED and for a comparison group of journals. The first
one, reported since 2008, is the 2-Year ISI Impact Factor (one of the most widely used indicator of a
journal's quality). This index is calculated as the number of times articles published in year t-1 and t-2 in
a given journal were cited by all journals during year t. The second is the IDEAS/RePEc Recursive
Discounted Impact Factor which 1) weighs each citation by the Impact Factor of the citing Journal -- this
Impact Factor being itself computed recursively in the same fashion, and 2) considers all articles ever
published in a given journal, but divides each citation by its age in years. The Discounted Recursive
Impact Factors are normalized so that the average citation has a weight of 1. In other words, this index
gives more weight to citations in good journals, and to recent citations.
| Recursive Discounted
Impact Factor | 2-Year ISI Impact Factor |
| 2012 | 2011 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 |
| Review of Economic Dynamics | 1.587 | 1.358 | 1.259 | 0.975 | 0.954 |
| AEJ: Macroeconomics | 2.004 | 3.800 | -- | -- | -- |
| Journal of Economic Growth | 2.645 | 2.458 | 2.468 | 3.083 | 2.542 |
| Journal of Monetary Economics | 1.901 | 1.892 | 1.654 | 1.755 | 1.429 |
| International Economic Review | 0.474 | 1.559 | 1.516 | 1.030 | 1.150 |
| Journal of Economic Theory | 0.850 | 1.235 | 1.112 | 1.092 | 1.224 |
| Journal of Money Credit and Banking | 0.693 | 1.093 | 1.150 | 1.194 | 1.422 |
| Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control | 0.513 | 0.855 | 1.117 | 1.097 | 0.885 |
| Macroeconomic Dynamics | 0.444 | 0.452 | 0.763 | 0.517 | 0.516 |
As witnessed by the table above, the Impact Factor of RED continues its steady growth. This trend also
applies to the 5-year IF which stood at 1.658 in 2011 (it was 1.550 in 2010). Moreover, the Recursive
Discounted IF shows that articles published in RED are very well cited by articles published in the top
economics journals.
Upcoming Special Issues
RED relies predominantly on regular submissions of manuscripts. Throughout our history, we have also
published special issues representing the frontier of academic research on topics which are of particular
interest to members of the Society. Articles in special issues are usually selected from a broad call for
papers, as well as through direct solicitations. They all go through a full refereeing process. Diego
Restuccia and Richard Rogerson are currently editing a special issue on "Misallocation and Productivity"
which is scheduled to appear in the January 2013 issue of RED. Mark Gertler and Steve Williamson will be editing a special
issue of RED on "Money, Credit, and Financial Frictions" which is
scheduled for publication in January 2015. The call for papers will be out
very soon.
Move to Article-Based Publishing
Starting from 2013, RED will move to a new publishing system called article-based publishing (ABP).
Right now, when papers are accepted for publication in RED, they can be listed as forthcoming but not
as published. It can take a long time before they are physically published in the printed journal,
depending on the length of the pipeline. ABP drastically shortens the phase between acceptance and
publication. ABP means that it is possible to publish articles with volume, and page numbers as soon as
they are accepted -- before an entire issue of the journal is finished. The article will appear on-line in the
volume in progress and then in print once the volume is finalized. On average, it will take only 7 weeks
from acceptance to publication. Moreover, at that point the article will be immediately citeable as
published.
Sincerely,
Gianluca Violante, Managing Editor
Review of Economic
Dynamics
|
