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\begin{document}
\title{The Future Information Infrastructure in Economics
\thanks{We would like to thank, without implicating, Mark Dickie,
        James T. Lindley, and Frank Mixon, and participants at the
        Second International Conference on "Computing in Economics and 
        Finance" in Geneva, June, 1996 for helpful comments.}}

\date{November, 1996}

\author{William L. Goffe\\
        Dept. of Economics and International Business\\
        University of Southern Mississippi\\
        Hattiesburg, MS 39406\\
        {\tt Bill.Goffe@usm.edu}\\
\and
        Robert P. Parks\\
        Department of Economics\\
        Washington University\\
        St. Louis, Missouri 63130\\
        {\tt bparks@wuecona.wustl.edu}\\}

\maketitle


\begin{quote}
For scholars and scientists, paper is not an end but a means. It has
served us well for several millennia, but it would have been surprising
indeed if this manmade medium had turned out to be optimal for all
time. --- Steven Harnad, in \cite{Okerson}, p. 90.
\end{quote}


\section{Introduction}

Computers have greatly improved the lives of economists. The estimation
of econometric models, the manipulation of datasets, word processing,
and EconLit are just a few examples of computers' impact. However,
computer networks may dramatically change the way we work. Already
we have seen hints with electronic mail, mailing lists, on-line card
catalogs, access to U.S. government data, and the start of an on-line
working paper culture (more than 3,000 on-line working papers at
last count; see EconWPA $<$http://econwpa.wustl.edu$>$,
and WoPEC, $<$\url{http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/NetEc.html}$>$.
Soon, back issues of the
AER will go on-line, and across academia, there are more than 300
peer-reviewed electronic journals (see {\it e\/$\cdot$\/journal}
$<$\url{http://www.edoc.com/ejournal/academic.html}$>$) with hundreds
of U.K. journals going on-line in 1996 (\cite{Hitchcock}).

\pagebreak

An optimistic vision of the future might best be demonstrated with the
following vignette:

\begin{quote}
Dr. Smith, reading an article in the latest JPE on-line with his PC
in California, was surprised by a footnote that cited a recent article
in the AER. He clicked to on the reference, searched the AER article,
and quickly found the results of a key regression. He had not
followed this literature for several years, and it was counter to his
experience. Opening up another window, he tapped into the AEA's on-line
archive for the paper's data in Tennessee and retrieved them. He then
ran the regression, tried additional diagnostics, and modified the
specification. He was surprised to find that the results were quite
robust. Curious about other recent results in this literature, he
then moved to the paper's references and clicked his mouse on several
related papers to jump to their on-line versions via a hypertext link
(he was thankful those journals were on-line, as his small library
did not carry their paper versions). He then recalled that he could
use this procedure for a project he thought about long ago, if he
could remember where he saw the data. He then opened up a window to
the AEA's database of data in economic publications (an outgrowth of
EconLit). He soon found the data on-line at a journal archive in New
Zealand. He contacted one of his graduate students in Virginia and they
began an on-line audio conference. They opened their word processors
in `conference' mode and began jointly and simultaneously outlining
and writing a new article---together editing, modifying, and pasting
new regressions results and graphs. In an hour, they had a new paper
partially written.\footnote{When we began this paper (February 1996), 
we had not thought about ``conference'' editing of a document. In the 
beginning of May 1996, we added this idea. That month, Microsoft
announced Microsoft NetMeeting, and we used it to edit both this paper 
and PowerPoint presentations.}
\end{quote}%

In short, a fully networked world could offer much easier access to the
information (working papers, articles, bibliographical information, and
data) that lies at the heart of what we do. Rather than visiting the
library for a journal you do not subscribe to, or requesting it via
Inter-Library Loan if they do not subscribe, or writing or calling an
author for his data or working paper, this type of information may be
freely available at your desk through your computer.\footnote{Thus,
the emphasis in a networked world is not so much on reading material
on the computer screen, but rather easy access to material. Of course, 
you may prefer to print the material locally rather than read it on the
screen. Note that since very few readers will print everything they access,
an electronic medium should save paper.}

However, this world exists only in embryonic form,\footnote{Even
today the amount of information available on-line is amazing. At
live Internet demos, we search the upcoming on-line version of back
issues of the AER, and the NBER Macro Historical Database.  We have
found 6 articles and many data series which mention the proverbial
``kitchen sink.''} and we are now at a cusp point, and any number of
outcomes are possible.  The current relationships within and between
publishers, libraries, and academics might be maintained with networks
simply replacing paper as the means of moving and storing information.
Or, entirely new relationships resulting from technological change
may arise that are more in keeping with academic principles and
traditions.  The path to any future is expected to be tumultuous.
A recent report by librarians and academic publishers (\cite{Scovill})
examines three scenarios for their future, and, in two, some or many
publishers and libraries cease to exist. The underlying theme seems
to be a common one that during periods of technological change, new
technologies not only improve existing practices, but may usher in
entirely different institutional arrangements.  For instance, the
Internet may even change the way cars are sold (\cite{Taylor}). In
such a world, can we expect our ``industry'' to be unchanged?

One possible future continues current practices with little improvement
in access to information, albeit with that information traveling over
networks. Information will still be tucked away in distant libraries
where you have no privileges, or at publishers' servers where you
must purchase it.  Specifically, as described below, publishers and
libraries are working on making their current offerings available over
the Internet.  Certainly, publishers have every incentive (profits)
to maintain the status quo (not the distribution method, but their
overall position in the exchange of academic information).  Thus,
under this scenario, the superstructure---the technology of moving
and storing information---changes, but no fundamental change takes
place in the relationships between the players.

\cite{Roes} examines a somewhat different possibility: ``electronic
document delivery.''  For scholars, this system is broadly defined
as any method of electronic delivery of journal articles or similar
material.  Today, it supplements a library's collection, and is
often implemented with faxed copies of a journal articles not held
by the local library.\footnote{Some might say that the ultimate
version is one published copy of a journal, with copies faxed to
all readers and the publisher compensated by copyright fees paid by
each reader.}  Perhaps the best known document delivery firm is CARL,
$<$\url{http://www.carl.org/}$>$.  As \cite{Roes} explains, this system
could evolve into electronic documents. With electronic document
delivery, the implicit assumption is that libraries and publishers
play roughly traditional roles---publishers hold copyrights, libraries
store journals, and they and users may pay copyright fees for the
electronic copies of material.  In short, it is another future that
roughly maintains the status quo.

Another possibility is that scholarly material becomes freely
available on the Internet, but is unorganized and all but impossible
to find.  Rather than economists placing their material on central
servers, or registering it with databases,\footnote{The former
include working papers on central servers like EconWPA, and the
later include databases of working papers (WoPEc) and programs
(CodEc) $<$\url{http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/CodEc.html}$>$ and (ELSA)
$<$\url{http://elsa.berkeley.edu/}$>$.} they simply place them
on their own or their department's web sites and expect others to find
them. This scenario is similar to one in \cite{Scovill}, and it
could be labeled the ``Field of Dreams Approach''---put it out there,
and they will find it.  This is clearly naive, since at last count,
there were tens of millions of web pages; a search at AltaVista,
$<$\url{http://www.altavista.digital.com/}$>$ an
Internet search engine, found more than 600,000 documents containing the
word ``economic,'' and more than 5,000 with ``Adam Smith.'' Clearly,
someone searching for the latest working papers on Adam Smith is
likely to be in for a rather difficult search.  On the other hand,
if the author of a working paper used EconWPA, or registered the paper
with WoPEc, a quick search of either will quickly locate the paper.

We argue that a different future, with both more easily
accessed {\it and} easily found information, is more consistent with
academic traditions and values.  This future is now possible with
the advent of powerful personal computers\footnote{Such as a 133
Mhz Pentium, which is now---late 1996---an ``entry-level'' machine,
which rivals the power of mainframes of not long ago.} connected
via networks. In our view, these new tools open up entirely new
opportunities for scholarly exchange, and will enable immediate and
free access to most any sort of information desired by an academic.

This paper does not offer a formal model, but rather a conceptual
view of how computer networks should change the way we work. It
is also intended to start a debate in our profession about how
we can organize the flow of information that is critical to our
professional lives.  This paper is also a brief overview of how
networks will influence academia; more details can be found in
\cite{Okerson}, \cite{Scovill}, \cite{Peek}, \cite{Hitchcock},
and many issues of the {\it Journal of Electronic Publishing}
$<$\url{http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/JEPtitle.html}$>$, while
\cite{Bailey} contains a very extensive bibliography.

This paper is organized as follows. The next section looks at academic
principles that do not change with technology or institutional
arrangements. These are concepts to be kept in mind during this period
of technological change in the profession. The third section examines
the impact of networks on working papers, journals, and libraries. The
fourth address access to data and indices to information. The fifth
looks at entirely new opportunities, and the sixth suggests a roadmap
for moving to a networked world. A conclusion summarizes these
ideas. Thus, this paper examines the entire flow of information in
the profession and how it might change with the arrival of computer
networks.


\section{Key Academic Principles}

When major changes occur in an institution or profession, key values
and goals should be kept in mind. For academia, of course, a primary
goal is the growth, acquisition, and dissemination of knowledge.
It appears that computers and networks may make the goal of obtaining
knowledge less expensive with a large drop in the cost of moving,
storing, and perhaps generating information.

Many practices in academia foster both the acquisition and
dissemination of knowledge.\footnote{When access to information is
restricted at universities, culture clashes often develop. For
instance, some universities have had conflicts with their
microbiologists who do not publish their results in order to protect
trade secrets.} The publication of results is encouraged, if not
mandated.  Indeed, it is how most members of the academy are judged,
and how universities earn their reputations (which is, after all, the
major output of a research university).  Thus, universities all but
demand the greatest dissemination of their scholar's production. To
support this, universities pay the salaries of scholars, pay for
the libraries full of books and journals which scholars use, pay
for travel to conferences, host seminars, and support the editorial
offices of journals.  Academic associations, rather than maximizing
profits, work to support the acquisition and dissemination of
knowledge by hosting conferences, journals, abstract services, and the
like. Indeed, the AEA is purposely operating at a loss to reduce its
assets (\cite{Hinshaworal}).  Individual academics are not usually
paid for refereeing,\footnote{Some journals pay a token honorarium,
but this is not compensation for the effort expended on refereeing a
journal submission. Referees could earn more per hour raking lawns.}
and only some editorial positions offer any remuneration.

Academic information is readily, if not freely, available. Readily
available information includes books and journals in libraries,
some data from government agencies and many private organizations,
journals and monographs in academics' offices, and presentations at
conferences. Freely available material generally includes working
papers and data from other academics, and a very substantial amount
of government data (at least in the U.S.).  In general, it could be
said that a key principle of academe is the freest possible access
to information produced by and for academics.

In a possibly tumultuous transition to a networked world, it is
important to keep this principle of access to information at the
lowest possible cost in mind. With a lower cost of disseminating and
storing information, not only might the superstructure (the technology
of moving information) change, but also the fundamental relationships
between academics, libraries, and publishers might change as well.


\section{Working Papers, Journals, and Libraries}

The impact of the new technology of networking on journals is well
explained by \cite{Kahin}:

\begin{quote}
In the networked environment, the pipeline model of publishing
collapses. Authors can speak directly to readers. Publishers and
libraries find themselves in the same business: providing access to
information. Under the old model, publishers saw that books and
journals were manufactured and physically delivered; libraries
cataloged and archived books and journals from many publishers and made
them available to one user at a time. In the new model, these classical
functions, and the neat division of labor that characterized the
pipeline model, disappear.
\end{quote}

In the world of paper communication, libraries and publishers exist
for very specific reasons. But, in a networked world, their reasons
for existence may lesson or perhaps even disappear.  A number of
different economic models for electronic journals are presented by
\cite{Grycz}. However, the most revolutionary is \cite{Harnad}. He
presents a holistic view of how the entire journal industry may
be upended with the introduction of networks for the benefit of
academics (\cite{Odlyzko}has a similar view). Harnad
first makes the distinction between the ``trade'' and ``esoteric''
author. The former expects to be paid for his work; indeed, it may
be his livelihood. The latter resides almost entirely in academia:
the authors are not, and do not expect, to be paid for their words;
the market per work is very small; and they sometimes even pay for
their words to reach more readers (such as paying for and sending
reprints).\footnote{On the other hand, academic textbook writers are
``trade'' authors} Their pay is tied to their recognition and status,
which is gained from the words they write. They want those words
to be as freely accessible as possible. Harnad is quite clear that
his argument holds only for the esoteric author. He then puts the
implications best when he says,

\begin{quotation}
The first step in getting the word to one's peers, however, is to
publish it at all, and in the Gutenberg age the only way to do this
was through the mediation of the slow and expensive medium of printing
and paper distribution. It was because of the high cost of this, the
only means of making one's ideas and findings public at all, that
esoteric authors have stood ready to go even farther than what has
been mentioned so far: They have been willing to make the ``Faustian''
bargain of trading the copyright for their words in exchange for
having them published. From the publishers' standpoint, the bargain
was eminently fair: They asked for nothing more than they asked from
trade authors, which was the right to protect the product from theft,
so costs could be recovered and both author and publisher could make a
fair profit. For the trade author, this bargain was not Faustian,
because both he and his publisher stood to gain from it---and to lose
from theft. But the need to pay a ticket at the door was the last
thing an esoteric author would have wanted to impose by way of a
deterrent for his already minuscule potential readership. 

So for the esoteric author, there was always a conflict of interest
built into the act of publishing: One wants to get the words out
there to everyone who might be interested, but one agrees to erect
a price-tag as a barrier, to cover the costs (not one's own, but
those of the publisher) and a fair return (again not to oneself,
but to the publisher who had incurred the costs).

Now that all this has been spelled out, the news: With the advent of
electronic publication, the Faustian era for esoteric authors is now
over. The reason is that the per-page cost---if one reckons it
properly---is so much lower for purely electronic publication that it
no longer makes sense to recover it on the subscriber model of trade
publication. 
\end{quotation}

He details journal's costs, where he speaks from experience---he
edits both the paper journal {\it Behavioral and Brain Sciences}
from Cambridge University Press and the electronic journal {\it
PSYCOLOQUY} $<$\url{http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/psyc.html}$>$,
sponsored by the American Psychological Association. There are two
components to costs: distribution costs and ``first copy'' costs
(all the costs up to distribution).  Clearly, distribution costs
for an electronic journal approach the trivial. He argues that the
savings for first copy costs of a totally electronic journal over a
paper journal are on the order of 70-90\%.

With drastically lower first copy costs and virtually zero distribution
costs (more accurately, very low costs borne by others), Harnad then
goes on to argue that these much smaller costs should be borne by
those who benefit from the research: the author's universities, funding
bodies, societies, and libraries. In other words, such journals would
be supported by a small page fee paid by these organizations. The works
will then be freely accessible (not free, as the costs are covered
by others, but freely available). Harnad thus provides a roadmap to
Kahin's view consistent with academic values---the freest possible
access to scholarly information. No longer will academics have to
make trips to the library for journals they do not subscribe to, and
Inter-Library Loan might even become extinct. Information becomes
more ``free'' because of technological change.\footnote{Note that
this does not necessarily mean the material is not copyrighted;
rather, the restrictions on use would simply fall---the rights holder
permits copying. This sort of copyright is common in some software,
and the best example is the GNU \cite{GNU} ``copyleft''---copying is
permitted, and the program can even be resold, but resellers cannot
restrict further copying. What is claimed to be the world's second
most popular version of Unix, Linux, which is built by thousands of
volunteers around the world, is ``copylefted.''}

The welfare and efficiency of Harnad's system is interesting. As
pointed out by \cite{Ordover}, journals can be thought of as
quasi-public goods because one can subscribe to one personally, or
go to the library and read a shared one. In Harnad's system, journals
become a pure public good (in distribution) with the cost of providing
this good borne by those who benefit from it: the authors and their
sponsors. Thus, in some sense, the optimal number of journals will
be produced since those who benefit from the journals financially
support the journals. Making journals a public good also has a nice
symmetry with the knowledge they represent, which, as \cite{Arrow}
noted, is a public good. In addition, as pointed by \cite{Varian95},
electronic journals, with what are thought to be substantial first
copy costs and very low distribution costs, face decreasing average
costs, thus making it difficult to recover costs if goods are priced
at marginal cost. But, with Harnad's system, journals are priced at
zero and the costs are borne by those who benefit from publication:
the authors and their sponsors.

Also, as articles are produced by academics for reasons other than
selling them, it is doubtful that an electronic world will produce
more (or less) articles than the current hard copy system produces
(however, the number of {\it journals} could rise or fall, but the
overall quantity of output of economists is likely to relatively unaffected
by this new technology).
Electronic journals will and do exist, providing the refereeing,
editorial (and selection) value added that they currently do in hard
copy.  Most of the value of a hard copy journal is the refereeing
and editorial process and this does not change.  What is different
is that publishers as such are non-extant, and the distribution
of the product---articles---becomes nearly free.  Since the product
is produced anyway, efficiency dictates that it be distributed freely
with any costs borne by universities, societies, or libraries.  If hard
copy is desired, then the individual reader bears the printing cost
which she should.

To a very large degree, Harnad's vision is reality in one field:
high energy physics. In 1990, less than 100 high energy physicists
started a list of electronic mail addresses and, via this list, sent
their research papers around the world to each other. Paul Ginsparg,
a physicist at Los Alamos National Laboratories and a very competent
programmer, created what is now known as the ``E-Print Archives'' at
Los Alamos $<$\url{http://xxx.lanl.gov}$>$, of which {\bf hep-th}
(high-energy physics---theory) is the most successful. It was envisioned
as, and is now, a fully automated preprint server.  Submissions are
made by authors, writing in \TeX\ or, \LaTeX. The software now
automatically creates PostScript and Acrobat PDF files from these
submissions. Readers access the system via the Internet by e-mail, ftp,
and the web. Submissions are not only indexed (full body indexing as
the submissions are made in \TeX\ or \LaTeX), but citation references
are created so that each paper not only contains a list of references
in the paper, but also a list of works cited by this paper.  The paper
thus has its own built-in citation index. \footnote{\cite{Ginsparg}
explains many of it features, philosophy, and outlook for the future.}

There are many reasons for this archive's success.\footnote{Success
can be measured in a number of ways---number of accesses to the
archive, typically 70,000 accesses per day from over 35,000 users
in 70 countries; number of submissions, typically 200 per month to
the most successful area, hep-th; number of preprints stored, over
20,000. Most if not all high-energy physicists do not consult hard
copy journals anymore---only the archive.  Also some senior physicists
sometimes don't  bother with paper publications---presumably their
sponsors have learned how to value their contributions to the
archive with measures such as citations.} It began with a core of
researchers who used the archive; they all wrote using \TeX; they were
technologically adept at e-mail;\footnote{The archive operated in its
first year solely as an e-mail based server.} the peer review process
for high energy physics had broken so that journal publication was
(and is) not the selection process as we know it in our profession;%
\footnote{They called their ``working'' papers preprints, but that
was not an optimistic name. Most papers are published, and published
within 6 months of submission with very few revisions.} preprints
were very costly to some institutions requiring budgets of \$20,000;
there was more international involvement, or at least collaboration,
than we usually have; and research results were demanded on a timely
basis (days rather than years).

One of the major fears about the E-Print Archive was that with no peer
review or selection process, and given the experience on Usenet physics
groups, the archive would be cluttered with noise rather than signal.
This did not happen, and it appears that there is some self-selection
process so that the noise has remained on Usenet while there is little
on the archive.

Harnad favors peer-review;\footnote{But he wholeheartedly proposes
that all scientific writing should be made electronically available,
before peer review and possibly to cause peer review.} unlike some
proponents of electronic journals, he feels it plays a useful role.
After all, there is no fundamental reason why electronic journals
cannot be peer-reviewed; at one level, it is simply a different means
of distributing the articles which constitute a journal.

Clearly, the linchpin in Harnad's argument is the reduction in
first copy costs with a totally electronic journal. Some find his
arguments implausible (\cite{Scovill}, p. 15), but others, such as
Odlyzko (in \cite{Okerson}, p. 119), are convinced. This is now
known as the 70-30 debate---are first copy costs reduced by 30\%
or 70\%? The answer seems to lie in how much copy-editing is done by
the journal. Some editors do no copy editing and other editors may
rewrite a submission, investing days in the process. The current paper
journals nourish a subsidization of poor copy submissions since papers
must be reformatted and typeset before publication.\footnote{Science
journals commonly have page charges which were originally implemented
to cover typesetting and copy editing costs, but now those charges are
a general levy to all articles and not just those that are poor copy
or in the wrong style.}
Also, our profession has a very heterogenous
set of styles among journals, and there is little reason to choose
one over another.  Hence, an author has little incentive (and none
from the journal/publisher) to submit good copy or style. This is not
true with electronic submissions, and in the future we may see journals
reject articles which do not obey the journal's style. Springer-Verlag
sometimes requires submission of \LaTeX\ in a Springer style, and no
copy-editing is done. Whatever the author submits is published. This
lowers the copy-editing cost to zero. With electronic journals,
the author who writes poor copy (regardless of the content) can be
forced to bear the cost of his actions---either by a journal charge
for copyediting of the particular article, or by rejecting the article
for poor editing and style.\footnote{Some math journals reject any
submission that is not in AMS-\TeX\ and most psychology and education
journals reject submissions that are not in APA format.}

With an electronic journal, the distribution costs are virtually
zero (these small costs are paid by those who pay for networks).
With totally electronic submission, first copy costs would
fall dramatically as illustrated by {\it PSYCOLOQUY}, the {\it
Electronic Journal of Combinatorics},
$<$\url{http://ejc.math.gatech.edu:8080/Journal}$>$,
the {\it Electronic Journal of Differential Equations},
$<$\url{http://ejde.math.swt.edu/}$>$, and {\it Geometry and
Topology}, and
$<$\url{http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/}$>$.\footnote{The
{\it EJC} requires
submission in AMS\TeX, and upon final editorial acceptance
of the manuscript, it is electronically published automatically
without human intervention.}
Thus, with the remaining first copy costs
supported either by institutions (a time honored tradition in academia
by well-endowed departments), or with small page fees paid by authors
or their sponsors,\footnote{The surprisingly low average cost of
a paper in the E-Print Archive at Los Alamos is detailed below.}
the journals will be freely available. All the journals mentioned
earlier in this paragraph are freely available are based on this model.


The study by \cite{JOG} of six academic journals shows that the
typical journal costs \$70,000 per year to produce. Typesetting (9\%),
printing (28\%), and shipping (12\%) account for almost 50\% of the
costs of the journal, which are print based expenses.  Administration
expense was 25\%, while editorial expense was 23\%.  Both of these
expenses may be reduced for electronic journals (possibly to \$0 as
it appears to have been with the EJC). Administration can be automated
and handled electronically while editing cost can be shifted onto the
author where it belongs. Currently, due to retyping the submitted
paper for printing purposes, copy-editing is done by the journal.

We can also compare the cost of the E-Print Archive at the Los Alamos,
described above, to the AER.  Paul Ginsparg of Los Alamos received
a one million dollar grant for 2.75 years.  The archive had 1,185
papers posted in one month (June 1996), or approximately 14,000
papers per year, which works out to an average cost of \$27.63 per
paper.\footnote{The grant was for software development with little
for ongoing maintenance.  Ongoing costs per article might be one order
of magnitude less, if not two.} Through the year ending August, 1996,
the AER published 175 articles (long, short and proceedings) with costs
of \$881,000 (\cite{Deloitte}).  That works out to an average cost
of \$5,034 per article.  Admittedly there is an editorial, referee
and copy editing process with the AER, as well as distribution. If
the figures above in Jog hold true, approximately \$2,000 per article
are due to printing and shipping.


For the near future, mixed paper and electronic journals are
likely. It would seem that a fee based paper version, and a freely
available electronic version, would lead many to abandon the paper
version. However, if paper versions are priced at cost,
this will not harm the journal financially
{\em if} its first copy costs are otherwise supported, as described above.
While this sounds unappealing, lower and mid-level journals are now 
being canceled by libraries. Thus, the model described above could well 
be their savior---in the current subscription model, they could fold, 
much as the scholarly monograph market has in other areas of academia.

It is also useful to look at the cost of using paper journals. For
their readers, paper journals carry a high opportunity cost. If the
desired journal is in your office (taking up precious shelf space),
it probably will not take too long to find the article.\footnote{Even though you
might have the journal, it is faster and easier to search for an
article with an online journal than to look through the shelves and each year's index of the paper journal.}
More likely, it will be in the library, entailing a round
trip of perhaps half an hour (assuming the journal is carried by the
library and it is correctly shelved). Finally, if a local copy is
not available, Inter-Library Loan must be used, and the delay will
be measured by days or weeks.\footnote{Even a relatively common journal like
the {\it Southern Economic Journal} has less than 3,000 subscribers
(almost evenly split between institutional and personal ones),
requiring many to experience
the IIL delay.} In the on-line world described above,
any journal can be read with just a few clicks of a mouse.

Looking beyond costs, according to Harnad, there is little role
left for libraries, and even less for publishers (at least with
their current business model based on subscriptions). Libraries and
publishers, not surprisingly, tend to see the future in different
terms---they see networks as simply adding another distribution
method to their customers.\footnote{Individually and together
they are working on a number of projects that add distribution
of their material by networks. The NSF, NASA and ARPA are funding
the \$24 million Digital Libraries program at Carnegie Mellon, the
University of California (Berkeley), the University of Michigan, the
University of Illinois, the University of California (Santa Barbara),
and Stanford University \cite{NSF}; Johns Hopkins Press along with
its collaborators has its Muse Project \cite{Muse}; Elsevier and
nine U.S. universities have Tulip \cite{Tulip}; Academic Press has
IDEAL \cite{IDEAL}; and Pica is a joint project with Kluwer and
Dutch libraries \cite{Pica}. Perhaps the largest move is a number
of British publishers will make hundreds of their journals available
on-line through U.K. libraries this year (\cite{Hitchcock}).} And
in the transition phase, librarians see one more demand on their
budgets from paper journals who charge extra for the electronic
version.\footnote{Project MUSE at Johns Hopkins Press charges
additionally for the electronic version though the subscription is
institutional, so that any faculty of a subscribing library can access
the electronic journal.}

Of course, any move to the system that Harnad proposes is likely
to be interesting, to say the least. Sufficient technology already
exists,\footnote{Web browsers such as Netscape either with their
standard html, or with a freely available Adobe Acrobat reader,
are sufficient to display almost anything one may write. The CD-ROM
version of the JEL uses Adobe Acrobat, and the reader is distributed on
each CD-ROM. And Adobe Acrobat technology and the web are being used
in a move in the U.K. by a number of U.K. publishers to put hundreds
of journals on-line in U.K. libraries (\cite{Hitchcock}).} and the
economics appear to be largely favorable (if first copy costs of an
all-electronic journal are truly dramatically lower), but there are
many ``social'' issues still to address: will promotion, tenure, and
annual review committees accept electronic publications?;\footnote{The
UK has legislated that in review of grants, electronic publications
must be weighed equally with hard copy publications.} how much will
entrenched interests fight changes?; will authors submit ``good''
papers to start-up electronic journals?; can universities supply all
of us with 17 inch color screens and a printer?; etc.

There are some important issues with electronic journals and electronic
posting of papers.  First, a paper may reside on a home page of an
author and also in a ``journal''.  As we have argued that electronic
journals have very low publication costs, so there is little concern
whether the article is viewed from the home page or from the journal
itself.  Since the journal should have the most up-to-date version
(at publication time), readers would be well advised to obtain their
copy from the journal.

Second, anyone can post a paper on a server on the Net.
As distributing hard copy working papers is costly, they are
limited in their distribution.  Not so with electronic posting.
Due to costs, most academics receive relatively few hard copy
working papers---selection is often for the wrong reason---cost.
With an electronic world, how does one keep from being swamped with
a glut of papers?  We estimate that there may be 20,000 working
papers produced in economics each year\footnote{The 20,000 may
be conservative, since with 270 journals indexed in EconLIT 
and say 40 to 50 articles per journal, there are possibly 10,000
articles published each year.}. In the electronic world, one may
have access to these 20,000 papers and selection, via some method,
is extremely important.  If anything, in the electronic world, the
importance and use of a journal becomes greater than it is in the
hard copy world.  Journals provide a significant means of selection,
while search mechanisms, notification lists (either from a server
or directly from the author), even and word of mouth provide others.
And the electronic era allows other models of selection---a possible
model is that readers rate papers posted on servers,
and you would consult the ratings to limit your search of
interesting articles.  Such a system has existed on the Net for
movies since 1991 ($<$\url{http://uk.imdb.com/organization}$>$),
and Hal Varian has proposed a similar system for academic
articles.\footnote{Papers in Informational Economics,
$<$\url{http://alfred.sims.berkeley.edu/pages/PIE.html}$>$.} There
are many such rating systems under developement.\footnote{See
$<$\url{http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/resources/collab/}$>$.}
For example, Wisewire
$<$\url{http://www.empirical.com/emc/wisewire.html}$>$ takes an
approach which is easily adaptable to academics.  Topics are called
{\em U-Zines}; we can imagine topics by JEL classifications).  Again
anyone can rate within a topic (or start a new topic), and the
server (like a journal) then shows you papers which, by its software,
determine similar interests to yours by your rating of papers.%
\footnote{However, it is important to realize the current methods
of selection are inherently messy: waiting for working papers to
arrive, talking to local and remote colleagues, checking the JEL,
waiting for the latest journals to arrive in the mail, and visiting a
library for the latest journals.  It may be unrealistic, and perhaps
unfair to expect the on-line world to be a panacea.}
While many hi-tech solutions have been proposed, it is interesting
to note that on the E-Print Archive at Los Alamos, there are no
such selection tools, in spite of more than 100 submissions a week
to the archive.  Apparently, physicists have little trouble sorting
through this number, to find what is interesting and important.

Finally, there is the obvious problem of the ``installed base''
of paper journals. The Mellon Foundation has funded some
interesting work in with the JSTOR (Journal Storage) Project
$<$\url{http://www.jstor.org/}$>$, where they have taken back issues
in seventeen economics, ecology, political science and history journals
and used optical character recognition technology to create electronic
versions. Details can be found in \cite{Varian96}.


\section{Databases, Access to Data, and Indices}

The difference between the amount of external reviewing an article
receives, and the data and programs underlying many articles, is
striking. Many, if not most, published papers are refereed by at
least two reviewers, and a substantial number are reviewed after
resubmission. Next, an accepted paper is carefully copy-edited. Yet,
the foundation of many papers---the data and the programs that use
the data---are very rarely reviewed. In an ideal world, referees
should review them as well---just as in theory papers the proofs
are reviewed.  A step in this direction now exists---the data and
programs used in an article can be archived on-line. Three economics
journals, the {\it Journal of Business and Economic Statistics}
$<$\url{ftp://ftp.duke.edu/jbes/}$>$, the {\it Journal of Applied
Econometrics} $<$\url{http://qed.econ.queensu.ca/jae}$>$,
and the {\it Review} of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
$<$\url{http://www.stls.frb.org/research/reviewdata.html}$>$ request,
if not require, data to be archived at their sites before the article
is published.


Two studies on the availability and quality of data and programs
are quite instructive. In the JMCB Project, (\cite{Dewald}), authors
of papers accepted or submitted to the JMCB were asked to supply the
data and programs used in their papers. Of those who were asked after
the paper was published, only 35\% did so (32\% never even responded
to the letter from the editor). However, 72\% of those whose paper
was still under review and 78\% of those whose paper was accepted,
but not yet published, were able to supply the data and programs.
Unfortunately, of the datasets actually collected, only 15\% were
judged to be complete. Finally, replications were attempted with the
data from nine papers. Only two articles could be replicated exactly
and another two quite closely.

A follow-up study \cite{Anderson} of the Federal Reserve Bank of St.
Louis found generally similar results for papers given at one of
their conferences---if data was requested after the fact, authors had
trouble providing it. But, if the data was requested ahead of time,
``Authors generally found it imposed little burden to submit data and
programs with their manuscripts {\em so long as they were aware of
the requirement in advance}, although the Bank's staff had to make
some follow-up calls to clarify documentation.''\footnote{cite{Anderson}, p. 83.}

Thus, it appears that a researcher interested in obtaining someone
else's data and programs will experience the same problems.
This suggests that there may be substantial problems in our
literature. But, at very little cost to the journals (running an
archive site is relatively simple and low cost, particularly if it
is centralized by an organization such as the AEA), and little cost
to the authors (if notified ahead of time), these problems can be
ameliorated with an on-line archive. In short, the new technology of
networks offers a real advance to the profession at low cost.

Some argue that authors should restrict access to their
data,\footnote{Proprietary or confidential data raises some interesting
replication issues. Should articles be accepted for publication which
are based on data which no other researcher can access---ever? There
are arguments on both sides of the issue.} but there are several
arguments against this.  A primary goal of academia is the freest
possible exchange of information. For instance, the NSF mandates
public disclosure of data from studies they fund (much of it is
available on-line at the Inter-university Consortium for Political
and Social Research $<$\url{http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/}$>$. The
{\it Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association}
tells its members to retain their data for a minimum of five years,
and to make it available to all ``competent professionals'' as long
as confidentiality and legal restrictions are upheld (\cite{APA},
p. 283 \& 298). Finally, NASA makes data from its newest series
of space probes, the Discovery series, available when the data is
collected (\cite{Disc}). Surely the investigators who build and run
these probes, a process that takes years, have more at stake than
almost any economist in the data.

The economics of this issue are interesting. First, as noted by
\cite{Hare} and observed by countless economists, those that generate
data seldom receive much credit.\footnote{One significant exception
is the Penn World Tables \cite{PENN},$<$\url{http://nber.harvard.edu/pwt56.html}$>$.}
This is partially due to
the previous technological infeasibility of distributing data, which
is no longer true. Currently the best way to receive a return from
generating data is to use the data in publications. In the electronic
world, journals cannot only archive data used in published articles,
but can also have sections solely devoted to publishing data. Releasing
the data in an article, in the current world, can reduce the incentive
to generate it---an author may not have time to produce all the papers
for which the data is a base before others write those papers. On the
other hand, preparing data for release likely improves its quality
and a citation to the data should be equally or more valuable than a
citation to the article.  Further, the organizations described above
(NSF, APA, NASA, JAE, JBES) apparently have decided that reducing
this incentive is worth the benefits it provides for generating more
knowledge. Finally, given that ``publication'' of the data is possible
in an electronic world, there is little reason not to require it---we
certainly would not publish theorems without their proofs, so why
publish empirical results without their proof?

Computer networks may change access to other sorts of data. Already,
U.S. government agencies offer a very substantial amount of data over
the Internet. With the exception of the Commerce Department's Bureau
of Economic Analysis, data is freely available. This access is all but
mandated by OMB Circular A-130, \cite{OMB} and section 3506.d of the
more recent Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 \cite{Paper} generally
mandates public access to government data through ``a diversity of
public and private sources'' at low cost. Interestingly, the resale of
U.S. data is generally permitted. While the profession can hardly mandate
that other governments follow the lead of the U.S. government,
they should be encouraged---after all, their taxpayers paid for
its collection.  International agencies, such as the IMF and OECD,
that receive U.S.  funds should be encouraged to follow the U.S. lead
as well.

To find publications, working papers and data, directories or databases
are essential.  Without them, one is effectively in a library without
a card catalog.  Already there are several indices for information
for economists on the Internet: ``Resources for Economists on the
Internet'' $<$\url{http://econwpa.wustl.edu/EconFAQ/EconFAQ.html }$>$
and ``WebEc'' $<$\url{http://www.helsinki.fi/~lsaarine/WebEc.html}$>$
are two of several general indices. ``BibEc''
$<$\url{http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/BibEc.html}$>$ is a database of
``hard copy'' working papers, while ``WoPEc'' and ``EconWPA''
are databases of electronic working papers.  Finally, ``CodEc''
$<$\url{http://netec.mcc.ac.uk/CodEc.html}$>$, ``ELSA''
$<$\url{http://elsa.berkeley.edu/}$>$ are databases of programs in economics.
and ``GAMS'' (Guide to Available Mathematical Software) at
$<$\url{http://gams.nist.gov/}$>$\footnote{Designed for numerical
analysts, it lists roughly 10,000 useful programs.  Besides being
a nice database in and of itself, it is a very nice example of the
utility of such databases.} Finally, there are also many specialized
databases that cover specific subfields, interests and topics
(which are described in ``Resources for Economists on the Internet''
and WebEc).

While economists are skeptical about monopoly providers, a single
database for each type of information may well be preferable to
multiple, partially or non-overlapping indices. For instance, if each
publisher had a separate database, only accessible to subscribers,
and the information was not available elsewhere, networks would
not provide much additional benefit to the profession in this
area. Single databases appear to work reasonably well for the phone
system, libraries,\footnote{As a counterexample, the Duke University
Library used to have two entirely separate card catalogs that varied
depending upon the date of publication of the work.} and for Internet
hosts (the Domain Name System, or DNS, which lies at the heart of
the Internet).  The trick, of course, is for the provider to face the
correct incentives to operate in the best interests of the profession.
Just as the AEA  provides the {\it Journal of Economic Literature} to 
its members, it also needs to support and develop electronic databases
for the benefit of its members.


\section{New Opportunities}

Previous sections examined how networking may change our profession's
access to data, journals, and working papers in the near future. But,
looking further ahead, other changes may occur in these or other areas,
such as teaching. Some of the changes discussed in this section seem
fairly certain, but others are frankly speculative.

Currently, journals are constrained by the medium they are distributed
and stored on---paper. While it is a very convenient and time tested
medium, it does possess limitations. For instance, color is quite
costly to use. Connections within and between papers, such as endnotes
and references, range from distracting to difficult to use in hard
copy versions.  With electronic journals and papers, a
 reference becomes a clickable entry, and notes can be pop-up
items rather than something at the bottom of the page or end of
the paper.

Some display technologies are simply impossible, such as movies
or animation. While animations sound like a silly thing to use in
an academic paper, think how changes in the yield curve over time
could be displayed with an animation where each second a new day's
curve is shown. With an electronic journal, all these technologies
are possible and even easy---color is as easy to display as black
and white, hyperlinks are a natural replacement for footnotes and
references, and animation is quite common in multimedia.

Besides an electronic journal displaying dynamic material, the
information in the journal itself might become more dynamic. Other
scholars could link their comments to a journal (perhaps only after the
author prepared a response, with the author having the last word). Thus
journals would more closely mirror the dynamic information they
represent. As an example, \cite{EJCMCHC}, $<$\url{http://ejc.math.gatech.edu:8080/journal/volume2/volume2.html\#R10}$>$
 was submitted on April 25,
1995, and accepted in about two weeks.  The authors posted a comment in
late May, 1995 and a mistake in a proof was noted (in a fairly lengthy
comment) in September 19, 1995.  In the hard copy world, it might have
been a year or two before the mistake was published and even then,
most readers of the original article would fail to see the mistake
as it would appear in a separate issue without any possibility that
the original issue could forward reference the latter publication.

With links {\em to} papers, counting citations becomes
integrated. That is, in an electronic journal, not only will an
article contain references to other works, but links to that same
paper also would be available instantly. This will make moving
through the literature much easier---one could move forward just as
easily as backward.\footnote{For example, the paper hep-th/9304128,
$<$\url{http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/hep-th/9304128}$>$ has thirty clickable
citations to it.  It takes only a moment to click forward and backward
through the literature to discover a great deal of literature written
about ``Black Holes'', the subject of this paper.  The value of this
paper is in part measured by its thirty citations.} It might even
lead to new ways of valuing scholarship, where citations are valued
more highly than the placement of the paper. Indeed, it might even
lead to an unrefereed literature.  A more general version is Harnad's
\cite{Harnad} ``scholarly skywriting,'' which he defines as ``rapid
electronic interaction,'' that ``allows authors to interact directly
with their peers at a tempo that keeps pace with the speed of thought
(paper publication being hopelessly slow for it, and spontaneous
speech, as in a live symposium, being perhaps too fast...).'' It
is already being used to good effect in {\it PSYCOLOQUY}.  Thus,
besides the usual journals and working papers, networks might usher
in new forms of scholarly communication.

Poor communication between referees and authors seems to be a common
complaint. Perhaps technology could offer a solution consistent with
the academic tradition of blind reviewing---the anonymous remailer.
Such e-mail systems take incoming mail, strip off all identifying
information, and then forward it to the intended recipient.  As an
example, consider:

\begin{quote}
An author posts her paper on EconWPA, and then fills
out a web form for submission of the paper to a journal. The form is
processed by software at the journal site, and it uses the information
from the web form and a database of referees to select potential
referees and to assign a manuscript number. The referee information
and manuscript number are e-mailed to the editor, who then selects
two referees. The manuscript number is sent to both referees and the
author(s), and the referees access the paper on EconWPA. With some
limits, the referees and author(s) use the manuscript number to send
e-mail to the journal site which then redistributes it anonymously to
the author(s) and referees jointly. It is archived so that the editor
can view it at her leisure. The author(s) may `prompt' the referees for
a timely report from time to time, but more importantly, the author(s)
and referees can `discuss' the problems in the paper, in-line rather
than with such referencing as ``at page 4 line 8, such and such...''
Since all referees receive the same information, a joint decision
can be reached, which is forwarded to the editor.  
\end{quote}

With such a system, the refereeing process is faster and does not
involve any administrative expense at the journal.  It may even reduce
the work of the editor since the referee and author can correspond
directly if need be.  No secretary need be involved in transmitting
the reports back and forth.  In addition, it would give referees an
added incentive to be careful since the author could query them on
their review. The pieces of this  technology are in place now. In
the future, anonymous ``talk'' and writing sessions could be used,
and even anonymous audio sessions where the voice is distorted to
keep anonymity will be possible.  All of this will provide a faster
and better review process.

To unambiguously date their work, academics could adopt ``digital
time stamps.'' This technology could reduce the sometimes fracas
debates over when ideas were developed and would even be a
weapon against plagiarism. See \cite{Haber}, Surety Technologies
$<$\url{http://www.surety.com/}$>$ and PGP (Pretty Good Privacy,
$<$\url{http://www.itconsult.co.uk/stamper.htm}$>$).  However, the
greatest deterrent to plagiarism is notoriety---electronic working
paper archives with notification and search technologies provide the
easiest means to greater notoriety, and hence the greatest deterrent
to plagiarism.

Besides communication within the profession, networks could aid
communication with our students. Networks facilitate interaction,
between students and teachers, both intra- and inter-class. Initial
experiments have been encouraging (\cite{Manning}). In addition,
networks provide a convenient forum for smaller papers and ideas
for teaching.


\section{Roadmap to the Future}

It seems fairly clear that many changes will occur in the information
flow of the profession.  One important lesson comes from the
development model of the Internet itself. Rather than designing a grand
system with every possible feature, the Internet has been developed in
an incremental fashion with repeated and frequent testing.\footnote{In
fact, work has begun on replacing one of the key components of the
Internet, the Internet Protocol (IP), which transfers packets from
one host to another. Test code is already being run using the new IP
version 6.} In addition, rather than adding every possible feature,
stress is put upon getting a useful version working. The general idea
is well expressed by  the ``Internet Credo:''

\begin{quote}
We reject kings, presidents, and voting.\\
We believe in rough consensus and running
code.\footnote{{\it The Internet Society},
Internet Standards,
$<$\url{http://ftp.isoc.org/standards/}$>$.}
\end{quote}

In addition, it would be wise to use standard Internet tools, such as
web browsers and Adobe's Acrobat (PDF) format, as much as possible.
These tools are rich enough to support almost anything economists
might wish to do. When new tools must be developed, it should be done
in an open manner. For example, a group of chemists have developed
a standard way of exchanging viewable images of molecules that is
freely available to all (\cite{MIME}).

Such freely available standards and software has a long history on
the Internet and likely stems in part from the Internet's genesis
as a research and educational network. For instance, the math and
physics professions use the \TeX\ system and it variants, such as
\LaTeX, for their word processing.  They are freely
available to all. While this system of freely available software may
seem odd at first brush to economists, the non-pecuniary returns to
the developers are substantial, and the indirect pecuniary returns
can be quite substantial indeed, as these projects advertise skills
to potential employers.  But, something more than returns are at
stake---for some these projects simply are enjoyable. Rather than
building a model train set in the basement, some build Web pages,
others write software, and some maintain archives, all as a hobby---but
as a hobby that can be seen by millions.  Larry Wall, the author of
one of the most widely used, but freely available programming languages
{\tt Perl}, simply states ``Just a personal note:  I want you to know
that I create nice things like this because it pleases the Author of
my story.  If this bothers you, then your notion of Authorship needs
some revision.  But you can use perl anyway.   {\tt :-)}"

With these concepts in mind, consider the development of
electronic journals. Most are accessed using either html or Adobe
Acrobat to display text and figures, and are accessed through
the web. This combination offers the features needed for an
electronic journal\footnote{html stands for ``hypertext markup
language.''  Web pages are written in it, so it describes their
elements: text, graphics, and links to other web pages and various
media. Unfortunately, it is not the ideal method of displaying
technical material since html does not natively support many
mathematical symbols.  PDF (portable document format), invented
by Adobe Corporation as part of their ``Acrobat'' product line, is
designed as ``digital paper.'' Thus, it can accurately replicate any
sort of table or mathematical expression, and even supports color,
movies, and sound; it is ideal for technical papers.  Adobe gives
away ``readers'' for PDF that work closely with web browsers (they
generate revenue from Acrobat by selling products that create PDF
files). The programs that generate PDF files are quite flexible and
work with many different programs.}.

These tools cover the ``back end'' of the process---how to put a
journal on-line given an electronic version of the paper. Another part
of the process is the front end---how papers are processed before
publication. The costs savings are likely to be considerable if
this process (submission, copyediting, reviewing, etc.) is entirely
electronic.  Complete automation requires standard word processing
tools---for example \TeX. Needless to say, it seems extremely
unlikely that economists will move to a common word processing
system. However, a journal could insist on electronic submission
in one of a few popular formats (say Word, WordPerfect, and \TeX or
\LaTeX) that cover the vast majority of economists.\footnote{And they
could charge whatever the additional cost is for other word processing
formats. Authors who insist on using their own should bear that cost.}
Furthermore, with the sophisticated ``style sheets'' of these word
processing systems, all authors would submit papers in the ``look
and style'' of the journal.\footnote{The Student Economic Review,
$<$\url{http://www.bess.tcd.ie/ser.htm}$>$ requires its student authors
to write and submit with Microsoft Word using its own style files.
The on-line and print versions then require little copy-editing.}
In other words, typesetting could be entirely eliminated with the
resultant cost savings.

Even the largest journals can be put on-line; a good example, with many
valuable lessons, is the {\it Astrophysical Journal Electronic Edition}
{\bf AJEE},$<$\url{http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/}$>$ is
described by Boyce \cite{BOYCE}.  The {\it Astrophysical Journal}
publishes approximately 25,000 pages per year.  One of the chief
design goals was to handle this amount of material with as little
human intervention as possible.  AJEE determined that they could not
go partly electronic, and that it was ineffective to take the paper
version of the journal and deliver it electronically.  Each party to
the publication had to participate to make the electronic journal work.
The authors have to submit in AAS\TeX (a version of \LaTeX) to provide
the structure of the document - title, author, abstract, sections,
and references.  Only with this structure can the submitted article
be automatically transcribed into Standardized General Markup Language
(SGML), wherein the database of references to the extant literature
can be automatically linked and checked.  The typesetter had to do
their copy-editing markup in SGML.   From the SGML, both paper and
electronic versions are created.


The benefits to a journal of this system are clear: more visibility
for its editors and authors (and thus more citations). Further,
in the near future, as journals transition to an electronic world,
there will doubtless be opportunities for journals that aggressively
move to this model---with much easier access, their use and status
will rise.  In the rapidly moving world of high technology, the field
is littered with failed organizations that didn't adapt to changes
in their environment.

Clearly, a substantial amount of work on the part of many will be
required. Editors and others working with journals will need to become
more familiar with the Internet and the different tools that produce
electronic documents. In addition, indices will need to be further
developed. Economists will have to get used to supplying information
for these databases. Simply putting a working paper or dataset on
a local web site without entering the information in a database
is analogous to libraries putting books on their shelves without
entering it in their on-line catalog. 

The AEA sponsors a number of programs that support the profession
beyond journals: their directories of economists, JOE, and the
indexing of the JEL and EconLit. Already, the directory, and JOE are
on-line (as is a home page with information about the association).
The AEA could help with many network initiatives.  Some would be in
the nature of ``infrastructure,'' such as developing ``style sheets''
for Word, WordPerfect, and \LaTeX, so that papers produced by these
word processing systems would have an identical look when placed in an
on-line journal (thus, no typesetting would be required, dramatically
reducing costs).  Sessions at the AEA annual meeting on the nuts and
bolts of electronic publishing would rapidly increase economists'
human capital in this important area.  To encourage other journals
to establish on-line archives of data and programs, the AEA should
establish an archive for the association's journals.\footnote{After all,
the AER states that its policy is to only publish papers with data that
is ``clearly and precisely documented and readily available.'' Putting
data on-line would simply implement this policy.} The archive might
even be used for non-AEA journals. Another program would be to sponsor
a freely available on-line journal to demonstrate the model described
above, much like how the APA sponsors {\it PSYCOLOQUY}, or how the AMS
cooperates with the {\it EJC}. Finally,
the AEA should encourage its members it register their working papers
and on-line data in databases so that other researchers can find them.


\section{Conclusion}

This paper is a first stab at how the information infrastructure for
economists might change dramatically with the introduction of extensive
computer networks. Rather than simply a new method of storing and
moving information, networks might usher in a new era with radically
easier access to publications, working papers, and data, which will
benefit the profession as a whole. The most revolutionary change is
Harnad's view of freely available journals. He first recognizes that an
electronic journal will have much lower production costs.  From that,
he proposes that the costs of journals be borne by those who benefit
from journals: the authors and their sponsors. As a result, journals
become freely available and much more accessible. Similar, changes
will occur in other parts of academic exchange: working papers and
data. In addition, the medium open up a number of new possibilities.
Finally, to make sure all these parts function smoothly, good indices
of these materials are essential.


\pagebreak
%\bibliographystyle{chicago}
%\bibliography{ce}
%\bibliography{paper}
\begin{thebibliography}{}

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\end{thebibliography}


\end{document}
