Is Peer Review In Decline?

Over the past decade there has been a decline in the fraction of papers in top economics journals written by economists from the highest-ranked economics departments. This paper documents this fact and uses additional data on publications and citations to assess various potential explanations. Several observations are consistent with the hypothesis that the Internet improves the ability of high-profile authors to disseminate their research without going through the traditional peer-review process. This paper begins with some documentation of recent trends in economics publishing. Roughly, the trends involve economists from top-ranked departments publishing fewer papers in many top journals.