Economics journal discussion: rankings, reputation, submission strategy, and field journals
Since EJMR disappeared, I’ve noticed it’s become surprisingly hard to find candid discussion of economics journals online. Obviously there was plenty about EJMR that nobody misses, but it did have a huge archive of people talking about how journals are actually perceived, which field journals are good, where people submit after a rejection, and how different placements are viewed for hiring and tenure.
I thought it might be useful to have a thread here for that kind of discussion, especially since old threads can show up when people Google a particular journal later.
A few things I’d be interested in hearing people’s thoughts on:
- How do you think about journal tiers once you get outside the Top 5?
- What are the strongest field journals in your area?
- Are there journals whose reputation is much better or worse than their metrics suggest?
- Have any journals noticeably risen or fallen in reputation recently?
- How do you view journals like JUE, JHE, JPubE, JHR, JDE, JLE, JRS, RSUE, Economic Inquiry, SEJ, CEP, EER, CJE, etc.?
- What does a realistic submission ladder look like in your field?
- What journals do you think are underrated or overrated?
- What journal ranking system do you abide by? ABDC? CL? ABS?
I’d also be curious how much this differs by institution. My impression is that the way journals are viewed at a top research department can be pretty different from how they’re viewed at an R2, liberal arts college, or business school.
Mostly I’m interested in the kind of stuff you normally only learn by asking senior people in your field: “X and Y are basically peers,” “X is harder to publish in than its ranking suggests,” “we’d consider Y a very good tenure publication,” etc.
Feel free to ask about specific journals in the comments too. It would be nice if this turned into a thread people could actually find later when trying to decide where to submit.