Academic Journals and Referees

Tyler Cowen blogs this:

Marginal Revolution: Economic Inquiry has a new policy: R. Preston McAfee (a great choice) is the new editor, and he writes in a mass email today:

More insidious, in my view, is the gradual morphing of the referees from evaluators to anonymous co-authors. Referees request increasingly extensive revisions. Usually these represent improvements, but the process takes a lot of time and effort, and the end result is often worse owing to its committee-design.... The system is broken. Consequently, Economic Inquiry is starting an experiment. In this experiment, an author can submit under a 'no revisions' policy. This policy means exactly what it says: if you submit under no revisions, I (or the co-editor) will either accept or reject. What will not happen is a request for a revision....