EconomicDynamics Newsletter

Volume 21, Issue 2 (November 2020)

The EconomicDynamics Newsletter is a free supplement to the Review of Economic Dynamics (RED). It is published twice a year in April and November.

In this issue

Society for Economic Dynamics: Call for Papers, 2021 Meeting

The next annual meeting of the Society of Economic Dynamics will take place in Minneapolis and on Zoom (or via Zoom only under restricted travel) from July 1st to July 3rd, 2021. We are pleased to announce plenary talks by Nicola Fuchs-SchündelnGuido Menzio, and Emi Nakamura. Remember, if your paper was accepted for the canceled 2020 conference, it is automatically accepted for the 2021 conference, and you do not have to resubmit. We will communicate separately with these authors about how to proceed. We also welcome new submissions, especially from young scholars who did not have the opportunity to submit to the 2020 conference. Given the extraordinary circumstances over the last year we also plan to host several sessions that will revolve around Covid-19 research. The deadline for new submissions is February 15th, 2021, and you can now submit using ConferenceMaker.

Doireann Fitzgerald and Nir Jaimovich

SED 2021 Program Co-chairs

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Letter from the President

Dear Colleagues,

Given the probabilities are extremely low that we are fully back to normal in terms of travel and in-person conferences by June, the local organizers and SED officers have decided on a Plan-B strategy for the 2021 SED summer conference. This meeting was originally scheduled for June 2020 in Barcelona, Spain and then postponed due to the Covid-19 outbreak. Our new plan is to host the event at the University of Minnesota—either as an all-zoom conference or a hybrid here at the Twin Cities campus. Since we had already set in motion reorganizations for the Taipei and Cartagena conferences for 2022 and 2023, respectively, we will postpone Barcelona until 2024. The organizers at the Universitat de Autonoma want to put on a good show in person. I want to thank all of the local organizers in the three venues for being so flexible in the planning.

The dates for this year’s meeting are now set: July 1-3, 2021. We are excited to have Emi Nakamura, Nicola Fuchs-Schundeln, and Guido Menzio as the plenary speakers. I am very much looking forward to hear about their research. As I noted above, our hope is to have a hybrid meeting, but we will have to abide by University rules and adhere to safety protocols. Please visit the SED website for any updates concerning the conference.

As I noted in the April newsletter, we are planning to expand the 2021 meeting in order to avoid a “lost” year. There is a second call for papers with a February 15, 2021 deadline. My hope is that we create opportunities for our  younger colleagues—especially those on the job market this year—to present new work. For those not accepted in the first round, this is also an opportunity to resubmit. Program organizers Doireann Fitzgerald and Nir Jaimovich have set up Conference Maker for new submissions and new uploads of papers accepted in the first that have been revised since February.

In other news, we are planning on having three webinars organized by Oleg Itskhoki, Larry Christiano, and Yueran Ma at the ASSA Meetings this year. In the works is a special video that will be honoring the life and work of Emmanuel Farhi. We are planning that for Yueran’s session. Finally, I want to thank our SED officers Marina Azzimonti and Erwan Quintin, who have been an enormous help to me.

I encourage everyone to check out the SED website and twitter account for updates on the ASSA meeting and next summer’s conference.

Ellen McGrattan

President, Society for Economic Dynamics

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Letter from the Coordinating Editor

Dear readers, authors, and friends:

I am writing with some updates on the editorial organization and processes at the Review of Economic Dynamics.

Editorial members

The composition of the editorial board changed in June 2020, when Jonathan Heathcote and Vincenzo Quadrini completed their terms as joint Coordinating Editors. On behalf of the whole community, I wish to express our gratitude to Jonathan and Vincenzo for their outstanding contributions to the journal. I hope we can build on their leadership and continue their work and that of their predecessors.

The current editorial board, which includes several new members, is:

Editors: M. Bassetto, M. De Nardi, M. Doepke, G. Gancia, M. Iacoviello, L. Karabarbounis (Coordinating), D. Lagakos, D. Restuccia, E. Schaal, A. Tambalotti, P.-O. Weill.

Associate Editors:  S. Albanesi, M. Azzimonti, Y. Bai, D. Berger, A. Burstein, H. Chade, J. Eeckhout, A. Eisfeldt, D. Fitzgerald, J. La’O,  J. Lise, L. Lochner, M. Mazzocco,  L. Paciello, F. Postel-Vinay, P. Restrepo-Echavarria, L. Rudanko, K. Ruhl, T. Schoellman, A. Shourideh, V. Sterk, J. Thomas, C. Tonetti, M. Trabandt, V. Venkateswaren, G. Vereshchagina, J. Wieland, C. Zimmermann.

Editorial processes 

Papers submitted to the RED are first assigned to the Coordinating Editor. The Coordinating Editor decides whether to send the paper out for review or to desk reject. Almost all desk rejections happen at this level. Conditional on passing the desk, papers are allocated either to the Coordinating Editor or to one of the Editors. Editors have complete authority in handling papers, including desk rejecting papers themselves and issuing all final decisions. Some papers are allocated to Associate Editors. Associate Editors serve an important role in our journal because they handle papers editorially by choosing referees and making recommendations to Editors. While Editors issue final decisions, in most cases they follow the Associate Editors’ recommendations.

Conflicts of interest 

The RED has established policies ensuring that no conflicts of interest arise when evaluating papers.

  • Referees cannot submit reports for papers written by colleagues, recent coauthors, advisors, advisees, family members, or by authors who have close personal relationships with the referee. Referees are expected to disclose if a conflict arises inadvertently.

  • Editors cannot handle papers written by colleagues, recent coauthors, advisors, advisees, family members, or by authors who have close personal relationships with the Editor. Editors are expected to disclose if a conflict arises inadvertently.

  • Members of the editorial board who submit papers receive evaluations from two Editors. Submissions from members of the editorial board cannot receive a positive outcome unless both Editors independently agree to the positive outcome.

Editorial turnaround statistics

The RED offers fair, high quality, and fast reviews to authors. The table below summarizes our statistics for decisions on first submissions between 06/25/2020 and 12/12/2020:

Average Days to Decision

Fraction of Decisions

Total

35.8

1.00

Desk Reject

0.6

0.42

Reject

61.0

0.44

Revise & Resubmit

62.3

0.14

 Our goal is to make the RED one of the most efficient journals in economics, by targeting a roughly two-month average turnaround for papers that pass the desk and by desk rejecting as soon as an initial evaluation is feasible. I would like to sincerely thank our wonderful referees who, despite the constraints imposed by the pandemic, continue to offer constructive reports to authors in a timely manner.

 

Submission fee policy 

The fee to submit a paper at the RED is $175. Per Elsevier policy, fees are not refunded for desk rejections. The submission fee for the RED is competitive relative to peer journals. The table below summarizes the submission fees for the RED and peer journals.

Submission Fee

Desk Rejection Refund

RED

175

0

JME

300

200

AEJ: Macro

300

150

JMCB

190

0

JIE

200

0

 

Social media

The RED is active in social media and I encourage our readers and authors to follow us at @RevEconDyn. I would like to thank our Associate Editor Paulina Restrepo-Echavarria for helping us setup our social media presence and for making the RED more visible with her witty tweets.

Data availability and replication policy

The RED has been a pioneer among economics journals in terms of requiring authors to make their data and computer programs publicly available as a precondition of publication. I would like to thank our Associate Editor Christian Zimmermann for helping us enforce openness in research and for his contributions to the RED database of data and computer codes for published papers.

Best,

Loukas Karabarbounis

Coordinating Editor, Review of Economic Dynamics

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