Summary: it is too early to be publishing papers on the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in top academic journals like the JPE, particularly quantitative papers.
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As an editor of the Journal of Political Economy, I have given a lot of thought to how I would handle papers related to COVID-19. Here is a thread on my views. These are my own views, not those of the journal or my fellow editors. These views are evolving.
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1) The primary goal of the JPE is to publish papers that "will have a long-term impact on economic research", not to provide real-time commentary on situations as they evolve.
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2) Serious quantitative analyses of the current situation rely on data that is either not readily available right now, or whose quality we do not yet know enough about.
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3) Many economists are currently working on COVID-19. Top general interest journals should publish the subset of that work that reflects the frontier of our knowledge, not the subset written up the fastest. Too early to know which of the current work will reflect that frontier.
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4) Refereeing is time-consuming. The referees that I would send a paper on COVID-19 to, are working on their own papers on this topic. They should focus their energies on getting their own work out.
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5) We should not be incentivizing fast and sloppy work over slow and careful work. Being the first ever to have an important idea is something that should be rewarded. Being the quickest to write up an idea that everyone is thinking about is not.
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Thanks for sharing an editor's perspective. I enjoy reading papers related to Covid but have not worked on that topic partly because I don't think I have any comparative advantage in this area.
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A smart alternative: real-time journals dedicated to COVID-19 like the CEPR's which can provide peer-reviewed work to policymakers/commentators (https://cepr-org.stanford.idm.oclc.org/content/covid-economics-vetted-and-real-time-papers …)
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The link seems gated? Thanks!
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As someone not working on covid research, nor publishing in JPE, I agree with your take. I would also add that publishing covid papers - in addition to favoring those moving fastest - would also likely massively favor those with name recognition.
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That hasn't been the case with the first covid papers I've seen. That can definitely be the case in assessing unobserved quality between papers and assessing which ones will have most lasting impact.
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