Editors' Notes

EDITORS' REPORT FOR 2015

The Editors are pleased and honored to have served this year, the 75^th anniversary of the Journal of Economic History. The Journal and the Economic History Association, both formed in 1941, have celebrated their diamond jubilee. We hope to keep the Journal going strong—now and in the future. We have several changes to announce. First, Timothy Guinnane is stepping down as book review editor for rest-of-the world. We thank him for his excellent work and dedication on our behalf. We are grateful that Carol Shiue has stepped up to take these important duties. Second, we are reviving and offering on a more regular basis essays reviewing and reflecting on developments in economic history. The first of the new series of synthetic pieces has appeared in the September 2015 issue.

We have benefited from the expert guidance and advice of our Board of Editors and the nearly 200 referees. “Graduating seniors” at the Board include Joyce Burnette, Bruce Campbell, Marc Flandreau, Bishnu Gupta, Michael Huberman, Trevon Logan, Joseph Mason, and Alan Olmstead; we sincerely thank them for their service. The incoming frosh include Guido Alfani, Richard Hornbeck, Morgan Kelly, Noel Mauer, Petra Moser, Aldo Musacchio, and Kim Oosterlinck. Each will serve a four-year term. Gillian Greenough continues as our liaison with Cambridge University Press and her help in the editing and distribution process is greatly appreciated. Numerous scholars contributed book reviews, including longer surveys. The editorial office is grateful to all who helped the Journal over this past year.

The number of submissions to the Journal (Table 1) fell slightly to 153 from 159 last year. The submission rate remains in line with the recent past. The publication ratio displayed is the number of refereed papers and notes published in the current year divided by the number of new papers submitted in the previous year. In 2014–2015, we published 32 refereed pieces. The ratio of this year's publications to last year's new submission is also in line with the recent past.

Table 1 PUBLICATION RATES

Table 2 reports the response-time statistics for the corresponding sample. To place the numbers into context, our goal is to have a decision back to the author within 90 days. This year's performance has been roughly on par with other years—the median response time of 78 days both overall and for new submissions. A small number of papers have taken much longer. We apologize to any authors of pieces experiencing long delays and promise to try to do better in the future. We are, of course, concerned about the quality of the response, not just its speed.

Table 2 RESPONSE TIME STATISTICS

The distributions of submissions are documented in Table 3 on eras and Table 4 on topics. (The automated part of system is not reporting on regions for the entire year; no consistent comparisons are possible at the current time.) Coverage remains broad. After a brief pause, the number of submissions on the twentieth century has resumed its surge passed the nineteenth century.

Table 3 DISTRIBUTION OF SUBMISSIONS BY ERA

Note:

Multiple selections per submission possible.

Table 4 DISTRIBUTION OF SUBMISSIONS BY TOPICS

Note:

Multiple selections per submission possible.

Readers will recall that at the 2013 meetings, the EHA board of trustees approved a policy to make publication conditional on archiving the data sufficient to replicate the results in the accepted articles. The new rules read:

“It is the policy of the Journal of Economic History to publish papers only if the data used in the analysis are clearly and precisely documented and are readily available to any researcher for purposes of replication. Authors of accepted papers must archive, prior to publication, the data, programs, and other details of the computations sufficient to permit replication. These will be archived at ICPSR and a stable URL link to these data will be published with each article. The Editors should be notified at the time of submission if the data used in a paper are proprietary or if, for some other reason, the requirements above cannot be met.

As soon as possible after acceptance, authors are expected to deposit their data, programs, and sufficient details to permit replication with ICPSR. Questions regarding any aspect of this policy should be forwarded to the Journal Editor.

We are now launching the new data archiving policy in cooperation with open ICPSR. We intend to begin to require data and replication files for new submissions on January 1, 2016. We believe this step will advance the Journal's efforts to ensure transparency and scholarly integrity.

Referees for 2014 were:

• Brian A'Hearn

• Olivier Accominotti

• Achyuta Adhvaryu

• Douglas Allen

• Marcella Alsan

• Lee J. Alston

• Francisca Antman

• Cihan Artunç

• Martha Bailey

• Richard Baker

• Joe Balagtas

• Jacob Bastian

• Joerg Baten

• Stefano Battilossi

• Judith Bennett

• Sambit Bhattacharyya

• Vincent Bignon

• Hoyt Bleakley

• Chen Bo

• Robin Boadway

• Howard Bodenhorn

• Lars Boerner

• Dan Bogart

• Michael Bordo

• Leah Boustan

• Fabio Braggion

• Philip Brown

• Joyce Burnette

• Louis Cain

• Colleen Callahan

• Charles Calomiris

• Davide Cantoni

• Traviss Cassidy

• Eric Chaney

• Latika Chaudhary

• Karen Clay

• Michael Clemens

• David Clingingsmith

• Patrick Coe

• Alan Cohen

• Stephanie Collet

• Lisa Cook

• Metin M. Cosgel

• Gary Cox

• John Cuddington

• Robert Cull

• Neil Cummins

• Melissa Dell

• Tracy K Dennison

• Clement Dherbecourt

• Livio Di Matteo

• Mark Dincecco

• Christian Dippel

• Nicolas Duquette

• Xavier Duran

• Alan Dye

• Christopher Dyer

• Marc Egnal

• David Eltis

• John C. Emery

• Steven A. Epstein

• Katherine Eriksson

• Rui Esteves

• Giovanni Federico

• James Fenske

• Alexander Field

• Price Fishback

• Marc Flandreau

• Juan Flores

• Mauricio Font

• Ewout Frankema

• Carola Frydman

• Leigh Gardner

• Oscar Gelderblom

• Robert Gillezeau

• Sun Go

• William N. Goetzman

• Dror Goldberg

• Regina Grafe

• George W. Grantham

• David Green

• Amanda Gregg

• Paul Gregory

• Farley Grubb

• Timothy Guinnane

• Theresa Gutberlet

• Myron Gutmann

• Stephen Haber

• Michael Haines

• Gillian Hamilton

• Christopher Hanes

• Walker Hanlon

• Leslie Hannah

• C. Knick Harley

• Bernard Harris

• Mark Harrison

• Joshua Hausman

• Morgan Henderson

• Benjamin Hicklin

• Ellen Hillborn

• Eric Hilt

• Philip Hoffman

• Richard Hornbeck

• Yifei Huang

• Michael Huberman

• Jane Humphries

• Kris Inwood

• Douglas Irwin

• Matthew Jaremski

• Noel Johnson

• Joost Jonker

• Daniel Kaffine

• Mark Kanazawa

• Shawn Kantor

• Tobias Karlsson

• Ian Keay

• Andrew Keeling

• Wolfgang Keller

• Morgan Kelly

• Lionel Kesztenbaum

• Miles Kimball

• John Komlos

• Edward Kosack

• Peter Koudijs

• Timur Kuran

• Ryan Lampe

• Fabian Lange

• Changkeun Lee

• Juliette Levy

• Frank Lewis

• Joshua Lewis

• Dan Li

• Gary Libecap

• Peter Lindert

• Guanglin Liu

• Trevon Logan

• Jason Long

• Moramay Lopez-Alonso

• Carlos Marichal

• Andrei Markevich

• Joseph R. Mason

• Noel Maurer

• Anne E. C. McCants

• Eoin McLaughlin

• Christopher Meissner

• Allan H. Meltzer

• Chris Minns

• David Mitch

• Kris Mitchener

• Carolyn Moehling

• Lyndon Moore

• Alexander Moradi

• Chiaki Moriguchi

• Petra Moser

• Nathalie Moyen

• Anne Murphy

• John Murray

• Aldo Musacchio

• Suresh Naidu

• Larry Neal

• Tom Nicholas

• Pilar Nogues-Marco

• Johannes Norling

• Alessandro Nuvolari

• John Nye

• Cormac O Grada

• Trevor O'Grady

• Lawrence H. Officer

• Alan L. Olmstead

• Kim Oosterlinck

• Sevket Pamuk

• John Parman

• Helen Paul

• Luciano Pezzolo

• Eline Poelmans

• Gilles Postel-Vinay

• Jonathan Pritchett

• Stephen Quinn

• Nicholas Radburn

• Ahmed Rahman

• Paul Rhode

• David Richardson

• Gary Richardson

• Albrecht Ritschl

• Mary Rodgers

• Jonathan Rose

• Joshua Rosenbloom

• Jean-Laurent Rosenthal

• Joan Roses

• Peter Rousseau

• Anne Ruderman

• Richard Ryan

• Laura Salisbury

• Isabel Schnabel

• Peter Scholliers

• Jerome Sgard

• Carol Shiue

• James Simpson

• Richard Smith

• Peter Solar

• Solomous Solomou

• Richard Steckel

• Sven Steinmo

• Jochen Streb

• William Summerhill

• Nathan Sussman

• Richard Sutch

• Kenneth Sylvester

• John Tang

• Alan M. Taylor

• Lowell Taylor

• Peter Temin

• Chris Tilly

• Francesca Trivellato

• Martin Uebele

• Richard Unger

• Jan Luiten Van Zanden

• Daniel Waldenstrom

• John Wallis

• Marianne Wanamaker

• Ta-Chen Wang

• Zachary Ward

• Warren Weber

• Simone Wegge

• David Weir

• Thomas Weiss

• Warren Whatley

• David C. Wheelock

• Eugene White

• Nikolaus Wolf

• R. Bin Wong

• Gavin Wright

• Dongwoo Yoo

• Peter Zeitz

• Nicolas Ziebarth

• Ariell Zimran

• Gabriel Zucman