Editor's report.

Razzolini, Laura

Editorial Statistics

From January 1, 2007, through December 31, 2007, the Editorial Office received 295 new manuscript submissions. Table 1 shows the time between submission and the Journal's first response, whether to reject, ask for a revision, or accept a manuscript, for the 295 manuscripts submitted during 2007. About 97% of the submitting authors received a response within six months, and only three papers received a first response after more than six months.

Table 2 shows the number of submissions and accepted manuscripts from 1997 to 2007. After an initial decline in 1997, mostly due to the change in editorship, submissions and acceptances have been steady.

Table 3 shows the distribution of published papers in 2005-2007 by subject, using JEL codes. Considerable fluctuation appears in the number of papers in each category over the three-year period considered.

Editorial Staff

The Editorial Board for calendar year 2007 consisted of Christopher Bollinger of the University of Kentucky, Kent Kimbrough of Duke University, John Pepper of the University of Virginia, and me. I thank my co-editors for their hard work and insights, as they continue to make a great contribution to the Journal and to the economic profession.

Manuscripts are submitted to the Journal using Editorial Express, the Internet-based electronic system provided by Professor John Rust and his associates. Once submitted, papers are assigned by the Editor to one of the Co-Editors or to the Editor herself for the refereeing process. Papers are assigned according to the field of expertise of each member of the editorial board. All responsibility for handling the manuscripts, including the final decision, rests with the editor to whom the manuscript was originally assigned.

Manuscripts are reviewed using a double-blind process: The name of the author is removed from the paper and not revealed to the reviewers, and the referees' identities are not disclosed to the authors.

The Editors rely heavily on the Board of Associate Editors for advice in the evaluation of manuscripts. On behalf of my fellow co-editors, I thank the associate editors for their help in our editorial tasks. Finally, we cannot forget the nearly 700 referees who have spent time and energy during 2007 reading and offering valuable comments on the manuscripts received by the Journal. My deepest appreciation goes to them.

I also thank Hayley Bialkowski, the Journal editorial assistant, for her outstanding job of handling all the different tasks and demands of the journal. Last but not least, I thank Professor John Rust and his associates for Editorial Express, the online editorial and reviewing program used by the Journal. Their online system has helped improve our editorial performance, significantly reducing the dwell time in handling manuscripts from submission to final decision.

Laura Razzolini

Editor Table 1. Distribution of Editorial Decision Lags between Submission and First Response to Author. January 1, 2007-December 31, 2007 Months Number of Submissions Percent of Submissions 0-3 144 48.8 3-4 74 25.4 4-5 38 12.8 5-6 20 6.7 6-9 16 5.3 9+ 3 1 Table 2. Manuscripts Submitted and Accepted. 1997-2007 Year Submitted Accepted % 1997 333 104 31.2 1998 279 68 24.4 1999 288 58 20.1 2000 251 57 22.7 2001 259 51 19.6 2002 244 50 20.4 2003 248 60 24.2 2004 242 59 24.0 2005 268 51 19.0 2006 289 49 16.9 2007 295 33 11.1 Table 3. Distribution of JEL Subjects for Accepted Manuscripts. 2005-2007 Subject Category 2005 2006 2007 General Economic and Teaching 3 5 2 Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology 0 2 0 Mathematical and Quantitative Methods 2 9 5 Microeconomics 2 10 4 Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics 6 2 3 International Economics 7 7 4 Financial Economics 1 2 0 Public Economics 3 4 2 Health, Education and Welfare 4 12 3 Labor and Demographic Economics 7 5 3 Law and Economics 3 1 2 Industrial Organization 4 13 4 Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting 0 0 0 Economic History 1 0 0 Economic Development, Technological Change, and Growth 4 3 1 Economic Systems 0 0 0 Agricultural and Natural Resources Economics 1 0 0 Urban, Rural and Regional Economics 0 0 0 Other Topics 1 0 0