Stakeholders Speak to Elsevier
on the Future of the Journal of Asian Economics
March 24, 2020
The fate of the Journal of Asian Economics hangs in the balance. The Journal was founded by the American Committee on Asian Economic Studies in 1990 with a special sense of mission to develop economic research on Asia and foster collaboration between Asian economists and their counterparts in the rest of the world. In recent years the Journal has emerged as the leader in the field of Asian economic studies based on citation metrics. Its Scopus CiteScore for 2019 has leapt to nearly 2 after long fluctuating around 1. And its ranking by the RePEc 10-year simple impact factor has climbed to the 160s range of more than 2000 economics journals from the 250s in 2015. This success is the result of dedication by the editors to working with authors to develop good ideas into papers of high professional standard.
Since 2015, the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Asian Economics has been Calla Wiemer. She is the third person to serve in this capacity as chosen by ACAES with the concurrence of Elsevier, publisher and owner of the Journal. In a break with established practice, Elsevier on March 18 offered Dr. Wiemer a one-year terminal contract for 2020. This would effectively sever the Journal's relationship with ACAES at the end of this year.
Many stakeholders would be impacted by such a break. These include the Associate Editors, who handle manuscripts with a strong sense of commitment to the ACAES mission; the team of Executive Editors, some of whom have been with the Journal since its founding; Guest Editors, whose work is at various stages of concept and execution; and finally authors, both those with work in the pipeline and those with papers already published. The Journal of Asian Economics goes to extraordinary lengths to work with authors, especially those from developing countries, in achieving their publishing potential. For work now in the pipeline, this process will be disrupted. For work already published, the recognition of this work that comes from the Journal's continued ascendance is in jeopardy.
The Journal's stakeholders deserve to be heard. Editor-in-Chief Emeritus Michael Plummer is acting to channel statements from stakeholders to the Journal's Elsevier representative. Stakeholders interested in communicating to Elsevier may address their statements to Dr. Haili He, Elsevier Beijing Ltd., China, and send them by email to