Labour Economics
Report of the Editor-in-Chief June 2011
The attached PDF reports on the statistics of
submission and the reviewing process for the period December 15 2003
– June 2011. The submission numbers continue to grow apace: over
this period we received 2124 submissions - 227 in 2004, 206 in 2005,
239 in 2006, 279 in 2007, 292 in 2008, 319 in 2009, 370 in 2010.
Out of the 96% of submissions that have received at least a first
decision to date, our average response time has been 2.8 months: but
in the last two years we have speeded up our response rate and have
achieved a response time to first decision of around 2.3
months. Some, but by no means all, of this increase is due to
increased desk rejections. The acceptance rate rose until 2008 where
it peaked at about 20%, reflecting the increasing reputation of the
journal, but it averaged about 15% over the period 2004-8. In the
last two years the acceptance rate has fallen back as we exercise a
little more discretion.
The impact factor of Labour Economics has
risen consistently: from 0.59 in 2006, to 0.67 in 2007, to 0.9 in
2008, and to 1.0 in 2009 but only to 0.78 in 2010. Our analysis
suggests that the 2008 value contained a couple of outliers which
have now washed out of the index.
Ian Walker
Find here the
reports as printable PDF
