Report of the Editor American Economic Journal Macroeconomics

							American Economic Review: Papers & Proceedings 2009, 99:2, 681–682
http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/aer.99.2.681




                                 Report of the Editor
                     American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

        The American Economic Journal: Macro­                     in the journal. While these articles are invited,
     economics (AEJ Macro for short) is one of                    they are, and will be, subject to refereeing.
     the four journals launched by the American                      AEJ Macro promised fast and efficient ser-
     Economic Association in July 2007. The first                 vice. This has been the case. The basic statis-
     issue was published in January 2009.                         tics are as follows. The mean time to first-round
        Because the flow of papers was low at the                 decision was 11 days for acceptance, 99 days for
     beginning, the decision was made (in mid-2008)               revise-and-resubmit decisions, 79 days for rejec-
     to produce only two issues in 2009, and four                 tions, and 7 days for summary rejections. The
     issues starting in 2010. There are now enough                mean time to second-round decision was 26 days
     accepted papers to fill the two 2009 issues, and             for acceptance, 87 days for revise-and-resubmit
     the flow of good papers is sufficiently high to              decisions, and 112 days for rejections.
     support four issues starting in 2010.                           All this would not have happened without the
        The mandate of the journal is to publish                  help of my Coeditor Steve Davis, and the Board
     “research on aggregate fluctuations and growth,              of Editors. Steve has proven to be the perfect
     and on the role of policy in that context. Such              Coeditor, efficient, and fun to discuss papers
     study often borrows from and interacts with                  with. The members of the Board of Editors have
     research in many fields such as monetary theory,             helped not only in refereeing, but also in identify-
     industrial organization, finance, labor econom-              ing and inviting authors of good papers. Members
     ics, political economy, public finance, interna-             of the current Board of Editors are: Mark Aguiar
     tional economics, and development economics.                 (Rochester), Nick Bloom (Stanford), Pierre
     To the extent that they make a contribution to               Cahuc (Paris), Yongsung Chang (Rochester),
     macroeconomics, papers in these fields are also              John Campbell (Harvard), John Cochrane
     welcome.” The contents of the first issue reflect            (Chicago GSB), William Easterly (NYU),
     this mandate. Three articles focus on fluctua-               Jordi Galí (Barcelona), Martin Eichenbaum
     tions, including one on the current crisis. Two              (Northwestern), Jim Hamilton (San Diego), Erik
     articles focus on trade and growth. Three articles           Hurst (Chicago GSB), Chad Jones (Berkeley),
     focus on institutions, culture, and growth. Three            Anil Kashyap (Chicago GSB), David Laibson
     articles, written for a symposium organized by               (Harvard), Jonathan Parker (Northwestern),
     the journal Editor and Coeditor at the 2008 AEA              Maurice Obstfeld (Berkeley), Thomas Philippon
     meetings, discuss convergence in macroeconom-                (NYU), Chris Pissarides (LSE), Valerie Ramey
     ics. The list of accepted papers, available on the           (San Diego), Ricardo Reis (Columbia), Christina
     Web site, shows a similar distribution.                      Romer (Berkeley), David Romer (Berkeley),
        The policy of AEJ Macro is to rely on sub-                Ivan Werning (MIT), and Michael Woodford
     mitted manuscripts and to use double-blind                   (Princeton). Thomas Sargent, who was an ini-
     refereeing. Acceptance of a paper requires joint             tial member of the Board, has resigned for per-
     acceptance by both the Editor and the Coeditor.              sonal reasons; his strong support of AEJ Macro
     We have, however, decided to also invite some                has been crucial. Mark Watson has resigned to
     researchers to write papers on topics that we                become Coeditor of the Review of Economics
     believe would be of particular interest to read-             and Statistics; we wish him good luck.
     ers. This is the case for the articles on conver-               Another crucial ingredient has been sup-
     gence in the first issue. Other articles in process          port from AEJ Macro staff. Managing Editor
     include an article on PPP prices, an article on              Michelle DeBlasi and Editorial Assistants
     liquidity and macroeconomics, and an article                 Kristina Korade and Kelly Markel have done a
     on the strengths and weaknesses of DSGE mod-                 superb job of helping through implementation of
     els. Another symposium, on the lessons from                  the new software and the processing of papers.
     growth theory, has been organized for the 2009               The Manuscript Central software has proven
     AEA meetings, and the papers will be published               reliable, if not very flexible.
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682                             AEA PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS                                   MAY 2009

   This report must end with a bittersweet          editor has been chosen. I am sure the association
note. Since September 2008, I have been on          will make a splendid choice, and I am confident
leave from MIT, as the Chief Economist of the       that, from the first issue on, the AEJ Macro will
International Monetary Fund. In the context         be the best journal in the field. I sincerely thank
of the current crisis, the duties of the job have   the Association for giving me the opportunity to
proven incompatible with editing this journal.      bring it to life.
Thus, and with sadness, I have offered my res-
ignation to the AEA, effective as soon as a new                        Olivier Blanchard, Editor