From the inbox:
Dear AERE members and friends of AERE:
The AERE Board met on June 7, 2013 during the AERE Summer Conference in Banff where it voted unanimously to commence final contract negotiations with the University of Chicago Press (UCP) to begin a new journal in the field of environmental and resource economics. This new journal will become an official journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists and will join our outstanding policy journal, the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, as the second of two flagship journals owned by our Association! We are finalizing contract negotiations with the University of Chicago Press and have today informed Elsevier, the publisher of the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management (JEEM), that we will not be continuing our relationship with them after the May 2014 issue. The company representative was very gracious in responding to this news and we look forward to a smooth transition.
JEEM (whose title is currently owned by Elsevier) has been an excellent journal, providing our profession with a consistently high quality venue for intellectual exchange and discourse. However, after years of consideration and a careful evaluation process including the publication of two AERE Newsletter articles describing pros and cons of launching a new journal, a well-attended public discussion at the AERE Summer Conference in 2012 followed by an online bulletin board discussion, the hiring of a professional consultant, and the elicitation and evaluation of bids from alternative publishers, the AERE Board believes the time is right for the launch of a new journal by our Association.
In so doing, AERE will own the journal and will retain maximum control of all current and future decisions regarding academic content, journal management, and dissemination of the journal content. While the specific details of bids received from publishers are confidential, the AERE Board unanimously concluded that the bid received from the University of Chicago Press best allows our Association to meet the goals set forth on our Bulletin Board in summer 2012.
The Board can report the following very exciting aspects of our new agreement:
- Free online access to the journal for all Association members;
- Inclusion in JSTOR, the nonprofit permanent repository of academic research;
- An excellent portfolio fit, with immediate inclusion in a UCP package including journals of 27 academic societies and many top journals in economics, including the Journal of Political Economy, Economic Development and Cultural Change, Journal of Labor Economics, and The Journal of Law and Economics;
- Very reasonable institutional pricing, which means worldwide access for scholars is maximized;
- Assured immediate library acceptance through JSTOR and complete Chicago Package connection; and
- A guaranteed minimum payment to the Association beginning in a few years, with a percentage of the revenues, if greater.
The Board has created an ad hoc committee to handle the transition to a new journal. This committee is chaired by AERE Past President Cathy Kling and includes AERE Vice President Don Fullerton, AERE Board Member Nick Flores, and former JEEM editor Joe Herriges. They will be communicating periodically with the AERE membership to provide information on the establishment of our new journal, on submission deadlines, on editorial leadership, and other essential information for rapidly making it the premier research journal in environmental and natural resources economics. To kick things off, the committee has set up a bulletin board to begin discussion about the possible names of our new publication. Please take a look and give us your ideas!
http://www.quicktopic.com/50/H/hZy3zstj5AFp.
The AERE Board is excited about this important new endeavor and hopes you will give it all the support it deserves.
Best,
Alan
Alan J. Krupnick
AERE President
Seriously, could JEEM's font size be any smaller (or, do I need a new bifocal prescription)?
