American Economic Association


News & Notes

Workshop on "The Art of Publishing": Last April, Emory University Economics Department organized a workshop on "The Art of Publishing" in academic journals. Editors of top journals in Economics, Political Science, and Sociology offered their perspectives on important issues related to publishing in leading journals.

Strategies for dealing with editors and reviewers, optimum journal selection given various journal ranking, impact of technological innovation on publishing, planning for and handling the publication lag for junior faculty, and current trends in respective disciplines and their impact on success rate are among the topics that editors from Journal of Political Economy, American Economic Review, American Political Science Review, American Sociological Review, Journal of Politics, Journal of Econometrics, Econometric Reviews, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, and Managerial & Decision Economics discussed.

The webcast of the event (separated by segments) can be accessed at http://www.economics.emory.edu/publish/webcast.html.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS
The Foundation for Child Development: Changing Faces of America's Children - Young Scholars Program's goals are to:

Eligible researchers will have earned their doctoral degrees within the last 15 years, and be full-time, tenure-track, faculty members of a college or university in the United States.  Applicants must hold a Ph.D. or its equivalent in one of the behavioral and social sciences or in an allied professional field (e.g., public policy, public health, education, social work, nursing, medicine).  Three to four fellowships of up to $150,000 for use over one to three years (and in rare cases, up to five years) will be awarded competitively.  Please note tenure equivalent positions are not eligible for the fellowship.

The deadline is November 4, 2009.  Additional information is available at:
http://www.fcd-us.org/programs/programs_show.htm?doc_id=447982

Questions can be addressed to ysp@fcd-us.org.
Foundation for Child Development web site:  www.fcd-us.org.

March 2009

To: Members of the American Economic Association

From: John J. Siegfried, Secretary-Treasurer

Subject: Announcements

1. Contributed Papers Submission Deadline for January 2010 AEA Meetings. The deadline for submitting individual papers and complete sessions to be considered for inclusion in the January 2010 AEA meeting program is April 1, 2009. The submission portal for the 2010 annual AEA meeting is http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/Annual_Meeting/index.htm.

For the meetings in 2010, individual paper submissions that are accepted for the program will be grouped by field into sessions of six papers and no discussants. The Program Committee will not create traditional sessions from individual submissions. The committee does not invite submission of six-paper complete sessions.

2. CeMent: Mentoring for Junior Faculty. The next Regional Mentoring Workshop is in San Antonio, Texas, November 19 and 20, 2009, just prior to the Southern Economic Association (SEA) Annual Meeting. Applications are due April 1, 2009. Go to the CWSEP website Mentoring Programs page or type this address into your browser title bar: http://www.zoomerang.com/Survey/?p=WEB228PK2J4US2

3. American Economic Journals (AEJs). The AEJ: Applied Economics publishes quarterly in 2009 (January, April, July, October). Only members of record on March 31 who signed up for the Applied Economics print issue on the website http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/journal_selection.htm will receive a print copy of the April AEJ: Applied free. This is the only way to get a print copy of April AEJ: Applied. They will not be mailed to the entire membership. Personal subscriptions to the AEJs are available only by membership in the Association.

4. AEAweb has recently been redesigned to facilitate easier navigation and access to features and services. Some features of AEA journal web pages that members may find useful include the ability to export citations, email article links to friends or colleagues, download data sets and additional materials when available, sign up for eTOCs and/or virtual field journals, and view or post comments on the discussion forum for the AEJs and the JEP.

5. NSF announces that the Science of Science & Innovation Policy (SciSIP) Program, in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences will mobilize research capacity to assess the effects of science investment in the Economic Stimulus.

The SciSIP program will take advantage of NSF’s Rapid Response Research (RAPID) funding mechanism to accept short (two to five page) proposals that evaluate the impact of the stimulus package. These include, but are not limited to: What was the contribution of the science investment to the creation and retention of jobs? What was the contribution of the science investment to science and technology industries? What scientific or technological advances were achieved? What was the impact on the scientific workforce?

Proposals must conform to the Grants for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) Guidelines specified in the Proposal Guide and may be submitted electronically at any time to the Science of Science and Innovation Policy announcement (PD 09-7626) via FastLane or Grants.gov. TheSciSIP program director, Julia Lane (jlane@nsf.gov), should be contacted for assistance and advice prior to proposal submission.

6. Call for Artists. For many years, the program cover for the Allied Science Associations’ annual meetings has featured artwork of economists or their spouses – Will Baumol, Harry Johnson, Betsy Bailey, Jan Pen, Robert Fogel and Assar Lindbeck, to name a few. If you have suggestions for future covers, please contact us. Artwork can be any medium that can be reproduced or photographed. We do not want original art. When accepted, a color transparency, slide, or photograph will be required. Should you wish to suggest a colleague, we will be happy to contact him/her. As you might guess, there is no remuneration, just the honor of having your work recognized. Send suggestions to: ASSA Cover, American Economic Association, 2014 Broadway, Suite 305, Nashville, TN 37203.

7. The John Bates Clark Medal was awarded biennially from 1947-2009 to that American economist under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge. At its January 2009 meeting, the Association’s Executive Committee voted to award the Clark Medal annually starting in 2009. The Medal winner is announced in April.

8. Chairs of several AEA committees have changed recently. 2009 chairs are:

CSWEP (Women)

Barbara Fraumeni

Univ. of Southern Maine

CSMGEP (Minorities)

Ngina Chetiji

Skidmore College

C Econ. Statistics

Matthew Shapiro

Univ. of Michigan

C Econ. Education

Michael Watts

Purdue Univ.

Employment and Training Administration
2009 Research Grant Program Announcement

Application Process Closes: April 30, 2009

The U.S. Department of Labor/Employment and Training Administration (DOL/ETA) invites doctoral and post-doctoral students to submit proposals for grants not to exceed $7,500 to conduct policy-relevant research and write scholarly papers on innovative research topics involving the public workforce investment system.  Topics of particular interest to ETA include:

However, applicants should feel free to propose any topic related to the public workforce investment system.

An applicant will submit a PDF of both a three-page summary outlining the proposed research idea and a separate curriculum vitae (CV) that describes the applicant’s academic and professional (as applicable) qualifications.  The summary should address the innovative nature of the applicant’s research topic and how the funds requested are critical to successful completion of the research and the draft and final papers.

The selection committee will evaluate these summaries and invite a subset of applicants to submit a 10-15-page proposal for evaluation and selection.  The proposal should provide more details on how the applicant intends to conduct the research and what data is going to be used.  Proposals will be evaluated based on the contribution to important policy issues and the professional literature (50 points), and technical merit (50 points).  A CV should also be attached to the proposal as well as at least one letter of recommendation from a professor in the applicant’s field of study.

Upon approval of ETA, grantees are expected to make their research results available to the research community and to the public at large.  ETA retains the right to use and disseminate the grantee’s research findings.  For additional information, and to address any questions, please contact Lance Grubb (301) 918-9500 or lgrubb@heitechservices.com.  Applications shall be emailed to Mr. Grubb by March 16, 2009.

February 2009

To: Members of the American Economic Association

From: John J. Siegfried, Secretary-Treasurer

Subject: Announcements

1. Contributed Papers Submission Deadline for January 2010 AEA Meetings. The deadline for submitting individual papers and complete sessions to be considered for inclusion in the January 2010 AEA meeting program is April 1, 2009. This is a later deadline than previously announced, and is later than the deadline for prior years. The submission portal for the 2010 annual AEA meeting in Atlanta Georgia opens March 1, 2009 and closes April 1, 2009. Find it at the AEA homepage via the tab for the Annual Meeting for 2010.

For the meetings in 2010, the AEA is also accepting individual submissions that will be grouped by field into sessions with six papers and no discussants. The program committee will review individual paper submissions and assign some to these six-paper sessions. The committee will not create traditional sessions from individual submissions. The likelihood that an individual paper submission will be included in the program will be higher for 2010 than in earlier years. The committee does not invite submission of six-paper sessions.

2. Econ-Harmony. Econ-Harmony is a web based service to help create complete sessions (organizer, chair, papers, and discussants) prior to the conference submission deadline (April 1, 2009). Econ-Harmony allows members to post proposed paper titles, abstracts and keywords; members and non-members may browse these planned papers and contact authors working on similar topics with an offer to collaborate in organizing a complete session. Complete session proposals have a much higher likelihood of being accepted for the program than papers submitted individually. Acceptance rates for individual papers submitted for the annual meeting average about 10 percent; for complete sessions, about 35 percent. It is at http://www.aeaweb.org/econ-harmony/.

Econ-Harmony does not replace the submission process; nor does it guarantee that a session will be included on the program. Rather, it should help prospective authors identify others working on similar questions so they can form a jointly organized complete session to submit in the regular submission process. The normal submitted session includes a chair, four papers, and a discussant for each.

3. Call for papers from the Committee on Economic Education (CEE). The CEE seeks methodological or empirical papers in economic education for a session on "Research in Economic Education" (for the AER Paper and Proceedings) to be held at the 2010 meeting in Atlanta. Please send abstracts (with an indication whether the paper is an empirical study or not) by April 1, 2009 to Professor William Greene, Committee on Economic Education, American Economic Association, Department of Economics, Stern School of Business, New York University, 44 West 4th St., Rm. 7-78, New York, NY, 10012, Email: wgreene@stern.nyu.edu

The CEE will sponsor a poster session at the 2010 meetings devoted to active learning strategies. Proposals should identify the teaching strategy and explain how it will be described. Emphasize the originality of the strategy and provide sufficient information so that session participants may apply the technique in their own classrooms. Posters marketing textbooks, software, etc. are not appropriate. Proposals are limited to two pages and are due May 15, 2009; include contact information for all authors. Send proposals to Professor Wendy Stock, Dept. of Ag. Economics, PO Box 172920, Montana State University, Bozeman MT 59717-2920, wstock@montana.edu.

4. AEA Continuing Education Program. A Continuing Education Program is being organized for January 5, 6, and 7, immediately after the 2010 meetings in Atlanta. Possible topics (3 will be offered) include labor, financial markets, game theory, health economics, development, and time-series econometrics. If you are interested in one of these topics and think there is a better than even chance you would attend were it offered, please so indicate at: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/cont_ed_survey.htm if you have not already done so.

5. American Economic Journals (AEJs). The AEJ: Applied Economics publishes quarterly in 2009 (January, April, July, October). AEJ: Economic Policy and AEJ: Microeconomics publish twice in 2009 (February, August) and quarterly thereafter. AEJ: Macroeconomics publishes twice in 2009 (January, July) and quarterly thereafter.

Association members receive a complimentary print copy of the inaugural issue of each AEJ. You may continue receiving print copies of the AEJs of your choice by requesting them at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/journal_selection.htm. Free print copies continue until the first membership renewal after December 2009. Thereafter, regular, student, and life members of the Association can purchase print AEJs for $25 per year per journal (plus foreign postage where applicable). All members have electronic access to the AEJs through the Association website. Personal subscriptions to the AEJs are available only by membership in the Association.

6. JEL Classification Code Guide. http://www.aeaweb.org/jel/guide provides new detailed descriptions of each JEL classification code. The guide includes possible keywords that might be used in conjunction with JEL codes in an EconLit search.

7. Online Handbook for the Use of Contemporary Econometrics in Economic Education Research. This handbook is being developed by William E. Becker, Jr. of Indiana University through the cooperation of the Council for Economic Education and the AEA Committee on Economic Education. Funding is provided by the U.S. Department of Education. An introduction and two of the four planned modules are at http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/AEACEE/Econometrics_Handbook/index.htm. Each module includes data and programs specific to the topic. Topics are: 1: Data Management and Heteroskedasticity, 2: Endogenous Regressors with Natural Experiments, Instrumental Variables, and Two-stage Estimators, 3: Panel Data and 4: Sample Selection Issues.

8. Webcasts are now available. Four panels (on the financial crisis, health policy, and growth) at the 2009 AEA Meetings plus all three January 2009 Continuing Education Programs (cross-section econometries, monetary policy, and experimental economics) were videotaped and are available to Association members online. Your E-pubs user ID and password is necessary to view at http://www.aeaweb.org/webcasts/assa2009.php

9. December JEL Journal Shortage. Because of an unexpected paper shortage during the press run, we have only a few copies of the December 2008 JEL beyond those sent to subscribers and members. We normally reserve a thousand per issue to replace undelivered copies. If you receive a print copy of the JEL, and plan to discard it, please mail the journal to back AEA, and we will return it to inventory storage to be used in for claims for lost issues or back orders. Please mail to: American Economic Association, 2014 Broadway, Suite 305, Nashville, TN 37203.

Wanted: Your books, for faculty and students in China

Bridge to Asia, the largest such program in the PRC where it sends 500,000 books to 500 universities per year, seeks your unwanted books and journals. Needs are urgent – even premier schools lack adequate collections. Thank you for helping if you can.

Shipping address (Western U.S.): Bridge to Asia, Foreign Trade Services, Pier 23 – Embarcadero, San Francisco, CA 94111

Shipping address (Eastern U.S.): Bridge to Asia, c/o Follett Campus Resources, 2211 West Street, River Grove, IL 60171-1800

Donations of books are deductible, together with expenses for packing and shipping. Once you have made your gift, please notify us at the contacts below, and we will send a formal acknowledgment and IRS Form for claiming your tax benefit.

Office address – correspondence only – please do not send books to this address:
Bridge to Asia, 665 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94108 - Phone: (415) 678-2990 - Fax: (415) 678-2996 - E-mail: nxliu@pacbell.net - URL: www.bridge.org

Thank you again.

To make college students aware of the nature, causes, and potentially disastrous consequences of our country’s $10.6 billion—and rapidly growing—debt, a national initiative, “Students Face up to the Nation’s Finances,” was launched in the fall of 2008. With support by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Public Agenda, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and public engagement organization, is providing a package of integrated, sophisticated learning and student-engagement materials that includes readings, films, a slide presentation, Web links, questionnaires and student discussion guides on issues such as Medicare, Medicaid and Health-Care Reform; the Aging Population and Social Security; Government Accountability; and Revenues and Tax Policy. There is also an assignment and contest for students to submit essays, videos, and other digital products not only to their professors, but also online to Public Agenda. These student submissions will be published online and in print, and disseminated to our nation’s leaders, the media, and others. The materials, which can be accessed at www.facingup.org/faculty and used at no charge, can be adopted as mini-courses within existing classes or used as the nucleus for more ambitious campus-wide efforts.

The Students Face Up to the Nation's Finances module was developed out of work that Public Agenda Vice President Andrew Yarrow did for his recent book, Forgive Us Our Debts: The Intergenerational Dangers of Fiscal Irresponsibility (Yale, 2008) , his teaching at American University, and a collaborative initiative over the last several years involving Public Agenda, the Concord Coalition, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation, and former Comptroller General David Walker. Public Agenda is already working with many higher education and public- policy organizations, including NASPAA, AASCU/the American Democracy Project, NAPA, AACC, the Association for Budgeting and Financial Management, and with policy and student organizations ranging from AARP and Generations United to Mobilize.org, as well as many individual campuses. The initiative seeks to reach hundreds of campuses over the next few years. The goal is to educate and energize many of America’s 16 million college students and help make their voices heard on this critical set of issues. For more information, please contact Gail Gottlieb, ggottlieb@publicagenda.org, 202-719-9752, or Andrew Yarrow, ayarrow@publicagenda.org, 202-719-9777.

Meeting Minutes

This page last updated 6/29/09

©2009 American Economic Association