For existing economics journals, and potential journals of the future, the benefits of electronic publication are clear: a combination of lower cost, potentially higher visibility for editors and authors, and easier access to information for readers. In a rapidly moving technological world, some journals will ride their electronic versions to a greater prominence; and other journals will diminish in status by a failure to adapt to the online possibilities.
For a journal thinking about going online, perhaps the first step is to consider the front end--how papers are processed before publication. The costs savings are likely to be considerable if the processes of submission, copyediting, reviewing, and so on can be as fully electronic as possible. Although it seems extremely unlikely that economists will move to a common word processing system, 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. Authors who insist on using other formats will then bear the costs of that decision, as they should. Using the sophisticated ``style sheets'' of these word processing systems, all authors would submit papers in the ``look and style'' of the journal.
For a journal considering the back end problem of online distribution, it would be wise to use standard Internet tools9 such as web browsers, HTML and Adobe's Acrobat (PDF) format. 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. Acrobat PDF (portable document format, invented by Adobe Corporation) is designed as ``digital paper.'' Thus, it can accurately replicate any sort of table or mathematical expression, and even supports color, movies, sound, links within and to external web sites, and can be fully indexed; it is ideal for technical papers. Adobe gives away ``readers'' for PDF that work closely with web browsers. The programs that generate PDF files are quite flexible. These tools are rich enough to support almost anything economists might wish to do.
Even the largest journals can be put online; one vivid example is the Astrophysical Journal Electronic Edition, as described by Boyce (1996). The AJEE publishes approximately 25,000 pages per year. A chief online design goal was to handle this material with as little human intervention as possible. To achieve this, each party to the publication process had to participate. The authors must submit in AASTeX (a version of LaTeX), with the papers structured by title, author, abstract, sections, and references. Using this structure, the submitted article is automatically transcribed into Standardized General Markup Language (SGML), and the database of references to the extant literature is automatically linked and checked. The typesetter does their copy-editing in SGML. From the SGML, both hard copy and online versions are created.
Clearly, a substantial amount of work on the part of many in our profession 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. Indices will need to be further developed, and economists will have to get used to supplying information for these databases.
The AEA already sponsors a number of programs that support the profession, in addition to its three journals: a directory of economists, Job Openings for Economists (JOE), and the indexing of the JEL and EconLit. The directory and JOE are online (as is a home page with information about the association; see the AEA Web Site) and the JEL is distributed on CD-ROM in Acrobat format. We believe that the AEA could help its members with additional network initiatives. At a minimum, the AEA should encourage its members to put their papers online, in archives such as EconWPA, or at least register their working papers in indices such as WoPEc so that other researchers can find them. It should also encourage authors to place their data sets in online archives (EconWPA has a section for data sets) and begin their own data and program archive for their three journals.
There are a number of relatively minor programs the AEA could undertake. For instance, sessions at the AEA annual meeting on the nuts and bolts of electronic publishing could increase economists' human capital in this important area. Another step would be for the AEA to promote development of ``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 online journal. In a ``baby-step'' toward electronic publishing, the AEA program could be put online rather than taking up valuable journal space in the September issue of the AER, and even the entire ASSA Program could be put online before the meeting. The Econometric Society did that for their program this year (see Econometric Society Program).
The AEA should take a real step towards electronic journals by publishing the Papers and Proceedings online. Currently, only about one quarter of the AEA seesions are published and those papers that are published are severly limited in size. The papers are not refereed nor is there much editing of the manuscripts. They are mostly limited to text with few tables or graphs. The printing cost alone is high ($109,457 for the 1995 issue, Ashenfelter (1996)). Although the Papers and Proceedings appear in May, five months is a substantial lag given the nature of the papers (presentations, unrefereed and unedited). We believe that with electronic submissions (requiring authors or their secretaries to submit in an AEA style and format), the Papers and Proceedings could appear by the first of March, or it could appear in May but with more refereeing and editing. There would be no limitations on size nor on graphs or tables. The cost savings and experience gained would provide a basis for putting the other AEA publications online. Along with publishing the Papers and Proceedings online, the AEA should put accepted papers online similar to what the Journal of Finance does. It has had enormous success.
Another example of how the AEA's costs could be lowered with networks is by electronic collection of the bibliographical material for the JEL and EconLit. Currently, much of this material is typed in. Instead, journals could submit the material electronically (many already have it from their production process), and the JEL would process this input for inclusion into its database. With a sufficient number of journals doing this, the fall in costs would be so substantial that EconLit could become freely available. While some costs are transferred to journals, they also benefit with greater notoriety of their results. Ultimately, journals that do not participate would be excluded from the the JEL and EconLit. This database would become more useful to members if it were integrated with online material. For example, the Astrophysical Journal Electronic Edition uses the Astrophysics Data System in its citations and bibliographies, and the E-Print Archive uses the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center's Library Databases and Documents physics database.
Finally, the AEA might consider sponsoring a complete freely available online journal, similar to the way that the APA sponsors Psycoloquy, or the American Mathematical Society cooperates with the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics. By providing a template for how this could be done, an electronic AEA journal would surely help the establishment of electronic journals across the profession.