Angus, Atalay, Newton and Ubilava write “Editorial boards of leading economics journals show high institutional concentration and modest geographic diversity”. There’s no doubt diversity of all types is an issue of concern in the economics professions, and here’s one more dimension.
Noting the US dominance in journals, the provide the following geographical summary of editorships:
Source: Angus, et al. (2021).
Much more detail is provided in the underlying paper. I happen to be a coeditor of the Journal of International Money and Finance. That journal did not make it into the their list, but it did make it into Google Scholar’s 2021 list of top 20 economics journals, by impact factors. The publisher (Elsevier) has recently updated JIMF‘s editorial page to include nifty flags (the numerical count is right for the US, even if for some reason, I don’t get one).
Note: J. Aizenman was coeditor until Dec. 31, 2020.
No summary of other dimensions of diversity; JIE has a more detailed breakdown. I’ll note that the gender disparity is definitely apparent, with only 3 females on the editorial board. (On the other hand, I will note that I’m the first Asian or Asian-American editor/coeditor in JIMF‘s 40 years.)
Unsurprisingly, the JIMF partly conforms to the norm that the center of gravity of editorships is concentrated in the US (two of three have been in the US for something like a decade). For the editorial board — the importance of which varies greatly across journals — there is somewhat broader representation, although as a journal dealing with international economics, you might expect more diversity. The editorial board includes representation of academics in China, in Hong Kong (which is counted separately in this tabulation), as well as New Zealand and Australia. No members in Africa or the Asian Subcontinent. There is one think-tanker (deutsches institut für wirtschaftsforschung), five central bankers (although admittedly there are more if you include lapsed central bankers), and most of the rest academics.
Does the distribution of editorships and editorial board members matter? I don’t know. If you consider the special issues that JIMF has published over the past 7 years, I’d say there is plenty of geographical distribution — international finance/open economy macro people go to where the problems are!
Special Issue “Monetary Policy under Global Uncertainty”
2019 Asia Economic Policy Conference (AEPC): Monetary Policy under Global Uncertainty
International Aspects of Economic and Policy Fragility
Micro data and the exchange rate pass-through to prices and trade
Global Safe Assets, International Reserves, and Capital Flow
2017 Asia Economic Policy Conference: Monetary Policy Challenges in a Changing Global Environment
Exchange rate models for a new era: Major and emerging market currencies
International Financial Integration in a Changing Policy Context – the End of an Era?
International spillovers of monetary policy through global banks
Monetary Policy, Macroprudential Regulation and Inequality
International dimensions of conventional and unconventional monetary policy
Emerging Markets Finance: Issues of international capital flows
Capital Flows and the International Financial System
Global Economy: Future Financial and Macro Challenges
SI – Tribute Jim Lothian
The New Normal in the Post-Crisis Era
Emerging markets finance: Issues of international capital flows
Emerging markets finance: Issues of international capital flows – Overview of the special issue
Emerging markets finance: Issues of international capital flows
Macroeconomic and financial challenges facing Latin America and the Caribbean after the crisis
Adjustment in the Aftermath of the Global Crisis 2008-09: New Global Order?
The impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Banks, Financial Markets and Institutions in Europe
The Pacific Rim Economies and the Evolution of the International Monetary Architecture
Current account imbalances and international financial integration
Now, whether the methodological approaches and literature cited in the papers in these special issues (and in the journal generally) depends critically on the geographical location of editors or editorial board members remains an open question. Personally, I suspect it depends more on the intellectual lineage of the editors — more on that in another post.
I have a feeling the flag thing was an “oversight”. Maybe they were hesitant to do it because the higher chance for error with an Asian name?? But surely with the high number of Asian scholars native born to America or with longstanding citizenship, it does make it very strange. Hopefully it will be fixed. I think it was an “innocent” mistake. but even innocent mistakes can be offensive or bothersome on some levels.
I’m gonna see if I can DL any of these issues for FREE. (my favorite form of theft, DL’ing pdf finance/econ journal papers. Well, that and some textbooks. Ssssshhhhh!!! It’s our secret!!!) No one would rat me out on this blog, would they??
Moses Herzog: Just typo, since flags are based on geography not national origina, and it says “Madison, Wisconsin, USA” just below…
If you use google scholar on the article titles, you’ll usually see “other versions”, of which some will be ungated working papers.
Thanks Menzie.
Totally separate topic I was gonna post for readers’ “general interest” I guess. America won its first medal in women’s diving on roughly the last 20 years (an unexpected Bronze medal). The young lady’s name iss Krysta Palmer. She made it abundantly clear afterwards she couldn’t have medaled for America without the help of her coach, Wolf Pack Diving Coach Jian Li You:
https://www.rgj.com/story/sports/college/nevada/2018/04/09/wolf-pack-diving-coach-jian-li-you-carving-out-her-place-mountain-west-history/498729002/
Found this in her twitter feed and just thought it was a nice photo. She put this up before she medaled:
https://twitter.com/PalmerKrysta/status/1420582871924940801/photo/2
Twitter always does this with pic links, which makes me extremely angry. I wanted you guys to see the picture with Palmer’s great coach. When you see the small photo, or two photos, obviously the one where she is a child is nice too, but click on the right side of the small image to see the picture of Palmer with her coach. It’s a really great picture in my personal opinion. These two people did something great together. And the “duo” is what makes it so special, and produced the medal.
Why would one expect geographic diversity to be a good thing?
Bob Flood: Might or might not. I have a prior if every journal editor in the world was in London, I might get a biased view of economics and economic issues. But you are right that the case is not proven.
Considering the impact economics has on societies, why wouldnt it be a good thing? One’s economic experiences in north america are probably quite different from south america or africa. Journal editors dont write the science, but they do control what issues are considered most important (and published).
The top economics programs have the strongest faculty and students that they can get. Even though most of them are located in the U.S, they are international in character. More of an issue than geographic diversity is the tendency towards ideological bias and/or group think.
I don’t disagree. But you also probably have less of an issue with ideological bias and/or group think if your editors are geographically distributed. I will admit, it is harder to scour the globe in search of top quality researchers rather than take your pick from the many highly qualified within the top institutions. But I think it is a task that can be completed, even if it is a little bit harder. It is better to take the proper road rather than the easy road.
baffling,
Actually, while there may not be all that much at the very top US programs, across US academic institutions there is almost certainly far more ideological and methodological diversity than one will find in almost any other nation on the planet, with probably only France the closest rival. I know. I wrote a book on all this.
Off topic but interesting anyways
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna1562
Story provides a link to the nature paper. As i have been arguing, energy inbalance is resulting energy accumulation in the atmosphere and oceans. We see this energy accumulation directly as a result of rising sea levels. Based on this energy balance, study shows the cause is overwhelmingly man made, and not do to natural cycles.
Certainly America’s “higher education” does a much better job than its K-12 component (What else would happen when Republicans try to defund and siphon off resources from K-12 public education from roughly 1980 up to now and spend half their time bad-mouthing public school teachers??)
If you’re attracting the “cream of the crop” from other countries, I don’t see this as a “pressing issue”. Maybe other nations should try harder to support and improve the quality of their universities. Other than English being the main language of inter-cultural exchange, there’s no reason why a city like Moscow wouldn’t rank higher—other than lack of effort or problems specific to that city.
Look at the number in Israel. Now tell me how Israel compares per capita vs per capita in America?? What about Germany per capita?? Or maybe per square kilometer if one prefers that measure. Does that look like Germany or Israel are having problems because the system is somehow “inherently unfair”?? If the complaint is they want Mexican journal editors at an Israeli economics journal my immediate response would be “good luck with that…….. “
Track and field has just taken over the Tokyo Olympics as it should. Men’s 100 meter qualifying through the first two runs said said 10 seconds was good enough (this dudes is FAST) when some kid from China took out the last qualifying run at a pace that dropped my jaw. Three other runners responded such that the 4th place time was 9.84. The kid from China won at 9.81. All four in the finals where Usain Bolt will be watching to see whether his records are still safe.
Track and field owns the Olympic and the 100 meters is still the star event!
Where else could a young Italian born in El Paso, Texas become an international celebrity after winning the event?
I expected the finals to bring a few surprises but where did this guy come from?
For what it is worth, when I was editing JEBO, especially in the first several years I did so, I made a major effort to diversify the ed board across various dimensions, including geography and gender (there was only one woman on the board when I first took over), as well as in terms of viewpoints and perspectives and fields.
I confess that with my current journal, ROBE, I have gotten lazy on such matters and really make no, or little, effort on such matters. This has led negatively to me recently coming to having zero people from East Asia, although a few years ago I had several. I also used to have people from Africa and South America, but none now. Lazy me. The current count is 38 from US, 16 from Europe, with the nations having more than one being Italy, UK, Germany, Netherlands, and France. Three from Australia, one from New Zealand, one from Israel, and one from Canada. There are 12 women.
Of course ROBE is not as highly ranked as JEBO was, which in turn is/was not as highly ranked as JIMF.
“I confess that with my current journal, ROBE, I have gotten lazy on such matters and really make no, or little, effort on such matters.”
i would recommend that you do so. and if you find this too much effort, perhaps it is time to let somebody else take over the operations that will prioritize ideas of diversity. leadership positions require responsibility, and should be filled with people who fulfill those responsibilities. if one of your associate editors told you they could not do something because it was “hard” or they were too “lazy”, how would you respond?
baffling,
I shall pay some more attention to it. But, frankly, I am more interested in diversity of ideas and approaches as well as competence as editors than playing some quota game on nationalities or other criteria that, frankly, as Bob Flood notes, may not have all that much to do with being an associate editor of a behavioral economics journal at this point. As it is, probably the most important such thing to pay attention to is gender balance, and I so keep an eye on that one, but no so much geographical or nationality balance.
There is also the fact that a non-trivial number of the people I counted as “from the US” are simply located at a US institution, but are in fact immigrants from other localities, and some of those listed as from other places also originated wlsewhere. A rather prominent Homorary Editor was born in UK with partial Indian ancestry, got his PhD in the US, but is now in France where he is a citizen. He speaks a very large number of languages. This is more complicated than you think it is, baffling.
I just counted and over 20 people on my board ate not natives of the place I identified them from, with looking at national origins leads to several from various parts of Asia as well as two from Souh America. So, my board is more geographically/nationally/ethnically diverse than my initial list looked.
Barkley Rosser: I’m confident if we went by where people *came from originally*, JIMF’s board would be more diverse. If we went by where *they got their Ph.D.’s from*, I’m not sure.
Moses and baffling,
I think that Menzie himself has noted, after being challenged by Bob Flood on whether this geographic diversity issue matters for joutnal ed boards, that it may matter more for his journal given that it is focused on international economics.
Mine is not, although there are some cross-cultural differences in economic behavior, and my journals have published papers on those over the years. But the gender differences in both economic behavior and how one evaluates papers are definitely much larger than those related to nationality or geography. While I described myself as being “lazy” for not paying much attention now to nationality or geography (which can get muddled anyway with certain highly cosmopolitan individuals), it has been more a matter of figuring out over time what really matters more. For behavioral econ that is gender way more than nationality or geography, while for the Journal of International Money and Finance, nationality is probably more imortant.
Oooops, that was Menziw, not Moses, I was replying too. Sorry about the confusion.
I am sure you are right about the JIMF board, Menzie.
Now that I know it is you, Menzie, another btw. I am simply not going to go digging into where people got their PhDs. Some I know, but plenty I do not. I am not sure I see any clear pattern among those I know where they got their PhDs. Of those in the US now who came from abroad, some got their PhDs in the US, but others did not. And indeed, as with the famous Honorary Editor I mentioned, there are some for whom where they were born, where they got their PdD, and where they are now are three different nations, in some cases completely different continents.
Barkley Rosser: You would be well-advised not to spend time tracking down where people got their PhD’s. Life is short.
Unless I was going to write a paper on the subject, I would definitely think about other things.
If we believe a number often quoted, that those of majority Jewish ethnicity are around 0.2% of world population:
https://www.pewforum.org/2015/04/02/jews/
(we can double that to allow for error or “overly strict” inclusion constraints, to 0.5%), and then we get the following, what are we to conclude??
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jewish-nobel-prize-laureates
HINT: This has nothing to do with “Elders of Zion” and nothing to do with QAnon conspiracy theories. These are, am I allowed to say it???~~~tangible facts
Moses,
On further checking, the number of likely Jews on the ROBE board is at least 12. I realized someone else I had not initially counted was when i went to look at which of the Nobel Prize winners on the board are. It turns out that 3 out of the 4 are Jewish, although one of those i had not known was or even thought about it, but then realized he might be, so I checked by google and he is. I knew two of them definitely were. One is definitely not.
“This is more complicated than you think it is, baffling.”
it is not. i am very aware of the issues. it just takes some work.
there has been a generation of academics who failed to consider diversity when it came to academic and research agendas. barkley, you were part of that generation. i am not saying you were the problem, but your colleagues (and i mean age group not individual colleagues) through the years disregarded diversity issues. that is why there is a concerted effort to rectify the problem today. i noted your use of the words “quota game”. i have heard that term used often with resistance to diversity. hey, i am happy you are aware of the issue and have tried to address it in the past. but i just have little tolerance for those who do not implement it today, because it is hard work. as i said before, it if is too hard perhaps its time to let somebody else steer the ship. it is good that you have focused on gender balance in your journal. well done. but don’t forget, there is still more to be done.
If the main idea Professor Rosser had at that time, was the quality of all job candidates (whatever race) involved….. And he left that book open while searching I think we can give him a “pass” he had the right intentions, or that no one was excluded in his search for quality candidates. I’m willing to assume Professor Rosser had the right idea in mind, not specific to some “count”. Or we can put it a different way, Professor Rosser was MUCH better on race issues than most guys of his same generation. It’s easy to criticize AFTER “diversity” becomes the trendy thing.
baffling,
Look, I once worried about this geographic diversity thing, but over time with experience I have figured out it is largely irrelevant to what constitutes having a good editorial board for the kind of journal I edit. So, being “a leader” on this matter is just bs. Sorry. What matters most of all is diversity of ideological, methodological, and field views or positions, with gender also important, not where people are from in terms of where they were born, where they got their PhD, or where they are now. Got it?
For that matter, since you seem to think this geography thing is a big deal, how would you characterize this and on which of these should one be measuring the degree of geographical diversity: place of birth, place of PhD, current place of employment? You are just posing something silly and worthless that distracts from what really matters. For that matter, which categories of geography do you think should be the basis for making sure there is some appropriate measure of diversity: continents? nations? Races or ethnicities or religions?
Oh, and there is this other matter, which is harder to describe, so I shall not do so in detail, although it is the most important matter of all: how good of an editor they are. That is one I have been figuring out for 20 years now. Note: I started out worrying about this geographic thing, but I figured out from experience it is not important compared to virtually all the other stuff I listed above. Got it?
BTW, there are some other categories that I pay no attention to. I have no idea how many gay people are on my board, although it does have at least one definite trans person who happens to have been very public about it
Moses,
Oh, and I also pay no attention to what somebody’s religious background is, any more than I do their nationality or ethnicity (and I am not going to get into whether Jewishness is religious or ethnic). Anyway, Moses, since you brought it up, I did check, and I am pretty sure that at least 11 of my 60 are probably at least partly of Jewish ethnicity based on their last names, although others may be also. For many of those 11 I know them well enough to know that indeed they identify as “being Jewish,” although in only a few cases am I aware of the degree to which they are actively religiously Jewish.
Oh, and for a bottom line, for what it is worth, my journal has been steadily rising on the journal ranking measure I take most seriously, the RePec recursive discounted impact factor ranking (although Menzie has his own fave measure). Out of 2116 journals listed now, mine is currently at 240th, which is up from 297th, which is what it was at the end of last calendar year, the last time I checked on that. JIMF is currently 61st on that list. JEBO is currently 85th. It was usually in the 30s or so when I edited it.
the professor doth protest too much, methinks.
baffling,
You were the one who got on a high horse and said maybe I should step down if I was not willing to be a “diversity leader” on this matter of geographic diversity. Again, that may be important for a journal dealing with international issues primarily like the one Menzie edits, which is the journal in its field, btw. But it is much less important for my journal, where, as I have noted, gender diversity, at least regarding male/female, is something that needs paying attention to.
Moses,
I thank you for your thoughtful and reasonably sympathetic comments on this thread.
Since you brought up this Jewishness and Nobel matter, I guess I shall be very open and specific about a matter I brought up that I guess I shall more fully clarify, the matter of the Nobel Prize winners on my board and their ethnic backgrounds.
All four of them are, unsurprisingly, Honorary Editors (I note some journals do not have these, including Menzie’s journal; they are arguably there more for show as one rarely asks them to do any actual work). They are the following:
George Akerlof. He is actually half-Jewish, although since it is from his mother’s side that makes him officially Jewish in the eyes of official Judaism. His last name is Swedish and that is where his late father was from. An uncle on his moher’s side, the late Joe Hershfelder, was a famous chemist who participated in the Manhattan Project and ended up at UW-Madison.
Daniel Kahneman. He is fully Jewish, period.
Robert Shiller. He is the one who turns out to be Jewish according to Google, although I never knew that and did not think he was. That is a name that has way more non-Jews bearing it than Jews, but there are definitely Jewish Shillers. I have been up close in person with him on numerous occasions, and for what it is worth he looks and acts way more like a WASP than a Jew. Heck, I look and act more Jewish than he does and even now I am often mistaken for being Jewish in person even by Jews.
Vernon Smith. He is a WASP.
I also used to have Tom Schelling and Reinhard Selten as Honorary Editos, but both of them have died. Tom was a WASP while Reinhard was half -Jewish but was raised Lutheran. He told me about how he survived the war by going into the German countryside and at one point hiding in a haystack, although basically when he was spotted he managed to get away with being a Lutheran.
Barkley, you are the one who admitted to being lazy on the diversity issue to begin with.
baffling,
I was being self-deprecatorily amusing and you took it seriously and got on a high horse. Get lost.
Oh, I meant to day that Menzie’s journal is the TOP journal in its fieldL international macroeconomics.
“I was being self-deprecatorily amusing and you took it seriously ”
barkley, i know you were making the lazy statement in jest. but you were also honest about the fact you no longer took much interest in addressing those ideas of diversity, of which you did at one time, and you could see that result in the current board makeup. it simply fell off of your priority list. i did not get on a high horse. i pointed out the fact, as a leader, you should simply revise that priority list. leaders in today’s academic world are doing exactly that. you don’t take criticism well, that has been obvious on this blog. but you can either improve your actions based on that criticism, or double down on your position and make excuses. your choice.
baffling,
You are right. I have repeatedly stated that especially for the kind of journal I edit this “geographic diversity” thing, which I pointed out is not so clearly definable is simply a waste of time and not worth pursuing. Other matters, especiallyi gender diversity is. You may think that “there is still more to be done,” but not on this geographic diversity matter, which you cannot even define. I did it, and decided it was stupid, to use stronger language here. I so not like to waste my time on doing stupid things.
Hey, there is a long list of unimportant diversity issues you could also throw at me that I should supposedly worry about. How about hair color. Do I have enough red heads? Maybe I need to worry left-handedness. Would not want to fail to give voice on my ed board to left handed people now, would I? As far as I am concerned, for my journal, geographic divwersity is about as mportant as those. Really.
Got it?
BTW, I just checked and all of Bob Shiller’s grandparents came from Lithuania. He was born in Detroit, and his mother’s maiden name was Radesville, also not an obviousliy Jewish name. But I think all hose grandparents were probably Jewish.
As i said before, the professor doth protest too much, methinks.
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-07-27/Diversifying-the-dismal-science-12eytrv4eNW/index.html
July 27, 2021
Diversifying the dismal science
By Alicia Sasser Modestino
Although economics uses mathematical models and machine-learning techniques, it is still a social science. But compared to most other disciplines, the profession does not even come close to representing the societies we live in.
In the United States, women received only 32percent of PhD degrees in economics in 2018, compared to 57percent in other social sciences and 41percent of doctorates in science and engineering. Worse still, Black and Hispanic economists accounted for just 3.7percent of newly minted economics PhDs – considerably lower than their combined share of doctorates in other social sciences (14percent) and in science and engineering (8percent).
The economics profession has made little to no progress toward greater gender, racial, or ethnic diversity over the past decade, and it doesn’t look like things will change anytime soon. There is a persistent pipeline problem that starts with women accounting for only about one-third of both undergraduate economics majors and graduate students in the field.
Within academia, women disproportionately fall off the career ladder compared to men during the promotion to tenure and account for only 15 percent of full professors.
Why has the economics discipline failed to diversify its membership? The simple reason is that economists tend to rely on market forces to solve most problems – including discrimination. The late Nobel laureate economist Gary S. Becker’s model of discrimination asserts that employers who discriminate based on factors unrelated to productivity – such as gender or race – will incur monetary costs (by paying higher wages, for example).
In a competitive labor market, non-discriminatory employers do not pay this cost and should therefore drive the discriminatory employers out of business.
This model makes many economists wary of analyses that ascribe wage differences across gender and racial groups to discrimination. Instead, they look to other possible causes such as differences in educational attainment or occupational choice, but often fail to recognize that these also might stem from discriminatory practices.
The emerging literature highlighting gender differences within economics is no exception….
Alicia Sasser Modestino is an associate professor at Northeastern University.
https://web.stanford.edu/~pdupas/Gender&SeminarDynamics.pdf
February 2, 2021
Gender and the Dynamics of Economics Seminars
By Pascaline Dupas, Alicia Sasser Modestino, Muriel Niederle, Justin Wolfers and the Seminar Dynamics Collective
Abstract
This paper reports the results of the first systematic attempt at quantitatively measuring the seminar culture within economics and testing whether it is gender neutral. We collected data on every interaction between presenters and their audience in hundreds of research seminars and job market talks across most leading economics departments, as well as during summer conferences. We find that women presenters are treated differently than their male counterparts. Women are asked more questions during a seminar and the questions asked of women presenters are more likely to be patronizing or hostile. These effects are not due to women presenting in different fields, different seminar series, or different topics, as our analysis controls for the institution, seminar series, and JEL codes associated with each presentation. Moreover, it appears that there are important differences by field and that these differences are not uniformly mitigated by more rigid seminar formats. Our findings add to an emerging literature documenting ways in which women economists are treated differently than men, and suggest yet another potential explanation for their under-representation at senior levels within the economics profession.
ltr,
This is an important paper that looks pretty accurate to me.
https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/mccarthy-slammed-for-joking-it-would-be-hard-not-to-hit-pelosi-with-a-gavel/3191769/?amp
Kevin McCarthy wants to become Speaker so he can beat up old ladies I guess. I guess some people are thinking why not as Pelosi does eat premium ice cream.
Bakersfield’s pride and joy. Somewhere today Peak Trader is snapping his suspenders at the thought of a representative from a world renowned Republican city becoming Speaker.
Just don’t be making any wisecracks about Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam, or EmmyLou Harris and we’ll get past this bump in the road. We’ll get past it, just don’t be giving those three any guff. : )
I’d give you 3-4 YT music links here but Menzie be out to be “crampin’ my style”. : ) (teasing Menzie)
Not to worry. Buck (and Dwight’s) “Streets of Bakersfield” is a favorite as is just about anything Emmy Lou has ever sung. Big Merle Haggard fan too.
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-08/02/c_1310102479.htm
August 2, 2021
Over 1.66 bln doses of COVID-19 vaccines administered in China
BEIJING — More than 1.66 billion doses of COVID-19 vaccines had been administered in China by Sunday, the National Health Commission said Monday.
[ Chinese coronavirus vaccine yearly production capacity is now over 5 billion doses. Along with over 1.669 billion doses of Chinese vaccines administered domestically, another 700 million doses have been distributed internationally. A number of countries are now producing Chinese vaccines from delivered raw materials. ]
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/asiapacific/2021-08/02/c_1310102864.htm
August 2, 2021
China delivers 350 million doses vaccines to BRI partners
BEIJING — China has delivered 350 million doses of vaccines to co-sponsors of the Initiative for Belt and Road Partnership on COVID-19 Vaccines Cooperation, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Monday.
The spokesperson said in a press release that Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi chaired the Asia and Pacific High-level Conference on Belt and Road Cooperation in June this year. During the meeting, China and 28 countries jointly launched the Initiative for Belt and Road Partnership on COVID-19 Vaccines Cooperation, calling for stronger cooperation in vaccine assistance, export, and joint production.
China has been actively implementing the initiative and reached cooperation agreements with co-sponsors of the initiative on a total of 775 million doses of vaccines, including in the form of concentrates, of which 350 million doses have been delivered, the spokesperson said.
Chinese companies have started joint production with four co-sponsors of the initiative and are discussing joint production with other interested countries, said the spokesperson….
Uh-oh…….. looks like somebody’s [feelings] got hurt:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-08-02/chinese-trolls-react-taiwan-beating-china-badminton/100342070
Reality stings sometimes, doesn’t it?? [edited MDC]
“It was Chinese Taipei’s first ever gold medal in badminton, one of the sports China is most dominant in.”
Badminton? This comes nowhere close to the four gold medals won by Jesse Owens in 1936. Maybe you have a youtube of Hitler’s disdain that a black runner destroyed his track stars.
Badminton is an important part of mainland Chinese culture. This is one of the reasons it’s notable. That combined with the political component, and one could argue it’s explosive. People here (I even venture to say our kind host) might be surprised how much I pull for Chinese athletes during the Olympics. But to see Taiwan win here, has a certain kind of sweetness to it. One I would say I find more sweet than seeing Chinese athletes do well, and even sweeter than some American medals. It’s a lesson to China how great they could become if they ever went down the true road of democracy. Taiwan literally is a kind of Mini-Me in this sense.
Having “members” in Africa would cover 1.375 billion, with a determination to develop independently, undergoing a revolution in finance and owed a Western development debt that is beyond measure. So, inclusion would seem reasonable.
Journal of International Money and Finance: Theoretical and Empirical Research in International Economics and Finance
“The editorial board includes…. No members in Africa….”
This really would seem to matter.
ltr: I would welcome your suggestions. The area of research is “open economy macro” and “international finance” and to a lesser degree “finance” (like asset pricing).
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2021-08-03/The-case-for-a-G21-12q507rf7X2/index.html
August 3, 2021
The case for a G21
By Jeffrey D. Sachs
The Group of Twenty (G20) has become a pillar of multilateralism. Although the world has many high-level talk shops, the G20 represents the best kind, actively supporting global dialogue, debate, and – most importantly – economic problem solving. Fortunately, its biggest limitation – that it leaves out 96 percent of Africa’s population – can be easily remedied by including the African Union (AU)….
[ South Africa alone represents Africa. The South Africa economy is smallest of the G20. GDPs of Egypt and Nigeria are larger than that of South Africa. ]
This thread looks to be about kaput, but I thought I would add one more set of observations, given that baffling’s only response to my specific arguments seems to amount to a whiny and vacuous “you protesteth too much” twice. Actually I would prefer to step back from whatever is going on at my current journal, which is not a super highly ranked one, even if it is moving up, and stick with the more general issues.
Some of this is informed by my having indeed written a book on some of these issues with David Colander and Ric Holt, published in 2009 by Elgar, European Economics at the Crossroads. I also note that while Menzie is a coeditor of a top field journal, he probably only sees about a quarter of the papers submitted to it (he can correct me if I am wrong). Quite likely the Coordinating Editor desk rejects 50% (give or take some) and then his fellow coeditor gets about half of the rest. OTOH, both at JEBO and now I have been the top editor seeing everything, many thousands of manuscripts over the last two decades. I had 5 coeditors and a bunch of associate ones under me at JEBO, whereas at the much lower key ROBE I have no coeditors under me, only associates, although both journals had/have honorary ones, something JIMF does not have (not a big deal either way).
So the big insight from the book is that indeed there are local heterodox schools of thought in quite a few countries that have developed by hiring mostly people who went to school at the particular universities that are the centers of these schools of thought. Some of these are persisting, despite outside pressures, and we in that book supported trying to preserve them as much as possible. An example of one that has persisted, although it has not spread particularly elsewhere, especially in the US, is the so-called “conventions” school of thought, based in France. There are a few others out there.
However, what has been happening and continues to do so is that increasingly unis in Europe and also elsewhere, including East and South Asia and other locations as well, have been imitating US schools and no longer hire internally, but open up to hiring from outside. This has led to many of them hiring people who were trained in the US, including natives of their nations, especially at those top schools that indeed do dominate the ed boards of the top journals. This is a real problem, domination by these top US schools, although many people, probably including quite likely Bob Flood here and maybe even both Jim H. and Menzie, might think this is a Good Thing. I and my coauthors question that.
As far as we are concerned, the issue here, not quite fully brought out by the authors of the linked article before they turned geography into a stupid quota game, is that this domination in the top journals as well as unis all over the world, leads to a diminution and weakening of alternative and heterodox views and schools of thought. This may not matter for many journals, especially those that are highly technical and very highly ranked, like Econometrica or the Review of Economic Studies. But we think it matters for the broader discipline.
So the irony is that if the real concern here is a breadth of views or thought, geographic diversity gets you nowhere. Most of the top schools in places like PRC and Africa and other locations are now dominated by conventional US neoclassical thought pushed in them by recent hires out of top US unis. As I noted, and a lot of people agree with us, you will find a much greater diversity of views and perspectives across US academic institutions than anywhere else, again with France the only possible rival, although interestingly the next most serious rival might be Australia, which does pretty well on having people on top ed boards. So having people from these different regions does not remotely guarantee any real diversity of views, although I can see it still might be useful for some journals, especially ones focused on international economics because people from these areas might have special knowledge about the economies of their own nations, albeit probably from a thoroughly conventional perspective.
I shall probably just annoy some people here who are usually down on my case with this, but I am going to also note that I really do know a lot about the state of academia around the world. I really have been around, a lot. So I have delivered professional lectures in 33 nations around the world, including all continents aside from Antarctica. I have also spoken at numerous institutions in many of those nations, 18 in Italy, 16 in France, and go to East and South Asia, well, 5 in PRC, 4 in Japan, 3 in India, 2 in Taiwan, and one each in Korea and Singapore, and, oh, 2 in Australia. My observations about what is going on in academic institutions around the world is based on a lot of personal observations over a long period of time, not to mention the many thousands of manuscripts I have read from all over the world as an editor..
So, bottom line: there is a problem of ideological and methodological domination by an entrenched set of views and approaches coming out of top US academic institutions. But attempting to play some sort of geographic quota game is not at all likely to deal with that at all, even if such a game might be advisable for certain journals, maybe including the top field one that Menzie is a coeditor of.
This is Jonathan Newton, one of the authors from the cited paper.
Thanks Profs. Chinn, Rosser & thanks to everyone else in the thread.
I can see that you have been having a spirited discussion. Thank you very much for your time and thought.
Prof. Chinn – the Journal of International Money and Finance is classified as a finance (rather than econ) journal by the ABDC, which is why it was not included in our data. Sadly, we are of limited means and had to draw the line somewhere!
The principal contribution of our work is to provide data. Naturally, we also provide some discussion of possible cause and effect (indeed a very thoughtful referee encouraged us to expand this aspect of the paper).
In a personal capacity (i.e. not speaking for my coauthors, who may agree or disagree), I would observe that:
– Responses on social media to our data have been bimodal, the modes being (i) the perception that the profession is wholly unfair and depends almost entirely on networks, and (ii) the perception that everything is perfect, cream rises to the top.
– Of course reality is somewhere in-between and there were many thoughtful responses regarding the topic.
– Indeed, I personally had long conversations with current and former editors and coeditors of Econometrica, AER, JET regarding this (I’m a theorist, as you can probably guess from this journal selection). The editors at these publications do pay at least some attention to geographical location in determining their editorial boards (though the systems vary quite a lot between journals).
– Within my own field (economic theory) there is certainly a perceived benefit to being in the right place when it comes to accruing power or status.
– Re. the previous point, I have seen students advised by their advisors in the US to take a job in Mexico rather than Asia or Australia, because “Mexico is close to the US so it is easier to stay connected”.