Southern Economic Journal “Conversation Starter” Initiative
December 2, 2024
The SEJ is delighted to announce a new submission option called “Conversation Starter”. Under this option, papers will be evaluated by their potential to generate substantive follow-up discussion in the academic literature rather than by the rigor of their research methods. In essence, the priority is on starting important conversations that have the potential to eventually lead to pathbreaking discoveries, as opposed to “finishing a conversation” by providing compelling evidence on a topic that is already widely studied.
The trend towards prioritizing identification of causal effects has greatly improved the credibility of empirical economics research. However, as Chris Ruhm explained in his 2018 Southern Economic Association Presidential Address and subsequent SEJ publication entitled “Shackling the Identification Police”, this advancement comes at a cost. Important topics which lack the quasi-experimental variation necessary for causal inference can be overlooked in favor of topics that are less central to economics but where a clean causal identification strategy is available. Generally speaking, authors are reluctant to write a “messy” paper regardless of the importance of the topic because it is unlikely to receive a favorable decision at top journals. However, discouraging flawed studies on important and novel topics stifles the breakthroughs that come from the process of gradual improvement in an academic literature – effectively preventing the spark that starts a fire.
SEJ’s new initiative aims to provide an outlet for such studies. Papers that might fit be a good fit for the “Conversation Starter” option include but are not limited to descriptive or correlational analyses of newly available data, regression analyses that move only partially towards causality, or lucid analytical discussions of issues that cannot easily be studied quantitatively. The key is the innovation of the question being asked and its potential to generate a new literature that will eventually lead to important discoveries. Studies that offer a bold new perspective on an old question could potentially also fit. Methodological limitations can be tolerated as long as the caveats are clearly discussed. Seminal papers are often later “proven wrong” along at least some dimension, but their value lies in spurring on others to revisit the topics with more advanced methods or data. In the words of Michael Grossman in his 2010 American Society of Health Economists Presidential Address, “It's Better to be the First or One of the First Even if You're Wrong (Especially if You Pick Interesting Problems on Which to Work).”
To submit a manuscript under the “Conversation Starter” option, authors need only to select this option from the drop-down menu in SEJ’s submission portal. All other steps are the same as for any other manuscript.
Questions can be directed to SEJ’s lead editor Charles Courtemanche at courtemanche@uky.edu.