Tyler Cowen had a nice post in which he commented on an expertly written article--expertly written in every sense of the word--by Preston McAfee on what makes a good editor. I would expand this description to say that this article is extremely beneficial for junior economists on how to write good papers, and how to avoid writing really bad ones. I would recommend reading the whole article to any economist whose job depends on publishing articles in refereed journals, but here are a few of my favorite quotes and nuggets of wisdom from the paper.
...A personal agenda is a bias, and when it matters, will lead to bad decisions. As everyone has biases, this is of course relative; if your reaction is "but it isn't a bias, I'm just right" you have a strong personal agenda.
...One well-known irate author, after a rejection, wrote me "Who are you to reject my paper?" The answer, which I didn't send, is "I'm the editor.It looks like editors have a lot of responses that they don't send.
...One author wrote me, with no evidence of a sense of humor, that if I rejected his paper, he would be denied tenure and his three children would go hungry. My response, which I didn't send, was "Good luck in your next career."
...I'm confident that there is no conspiracy [at the American Economic Review against top departments], for if there were, I wouldn't have been chosen as a co-editor. The causality actually runs the opposite direction--people who publish a lot wind up hired by top departments. Papers and Proceedings is run, of course, for the benefit of the AEA president who organizes it and thus represents a conspiracy.After reading through and recommending rejection for a terrible paper, one referee wrote back to McAfee the following:
...If as an editor you can't painlessly explain why you are excited to publish a paper, you should probably reject it. If you can painlessly explain, the do so for the good of humanity--it creates a lot of social value at very low personal cost.
...the AER refereeing fee is just enough to buy a bottle of scotch, which helps me forget these miserable papers.
