Journal of Economic Literature

Journal of Economic Literature
Title	Journal of Economic Literature
Discipline	Economics
Abbreviation	JEL
Publisher	American Economic Association
Country	United States
Frequency	Quarterly
History	1963–present
Impact	8.0

Journal of Economic Literature is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the American Economic Association that provides surveys, reviews, and bibliographic essays on topics in Adam Smith-era to contemporary John Maynard Keynes-inspired scholarship. The journal publishes comprehensive syntheses that connect work associated with Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, and Elinor Ostrom while mapping literature tied to institutions such as the National Bureau of Economic Research, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, London School of Economics, and Harvard University.

History

The journal was established in 1963 during a period shaped by debates involving figures like Kenneth Arrow, Paul A. Samuelson, Robert Solow, Milton Friedman, and organizations such as the Cowles Commission and the Brookings Institution. Early editorial direction reflected methodological disputes linked to schools associated with John Hicks, Tjalling Koopmans, Franco Modigliani, and Simon Kuznets, and it paralleled developments at journals like Econometrica, American Economic Review, and Quarterly Journal of Economics. Over decades the publication responded to scholarly shifts from work by Gary Becker, Robert Lucas Jr., Daron Acemoglu, Angus Deaton, and Esther Duflo, and it adapted to bibliometric changes seen at institutions including Clarivate Analytics and Scopus.

Scope and Content

Content spans review essays and bibliographic surveys linked to authors and topics such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter, David Ricardo, Thomas Piketty, Nicolas Stern, Eugene Fama, Kenneth Rogoff, Elinor Ostrom, Robert Putnam, Paul Krugman, Janet Yellen, Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, Ronald Coase, Oliver Williamson, Simon Kuznets, Herman Daly, Amartya Sen, Arthur Laffer, William Nordhaus, Thomas Schelling, Daniel Kahneman, Vernon Smith, Alvin Roth, Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee, Angus Deaton, and institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, and European Central Bank. The journal addresses themes tied to events like the Great Depression, the 1973 oil crisis, the Global Financial Crisis (2007–2008), the COVID-19 pandemic, and policy episodes involving the New Deal, the Bretton Woods Conference, and the Washington Consensus.

Editorial Process and Policies

Peer review and editorial selection involve scholars affiliated with universities and research centers such as Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, University of Chicago, Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University, London School of Economics, University of California, Berkeley, and the National Bureau of Economic Research. Policies reflect standards discussed at meetings of the American Economic Association and align with citation practices promoted by entities like CrossRef and Committee on Publication Ethics. Submission procedures and citation guidelines are informed by debates associated with figures such as John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman and institutional norms from journals including Review of Economic Studies and Journal of Political Economy.

Impact and Reception

The journal is widely cited in literature indexed by Web of Science, Scopus, and the RePEc network, and individual articles have influenced policy debates involving actors such as the Federal Reserve System, European Central Bank, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank. Reviews and surveys published in the journal have been discussed in venues associated with Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences laureates including Amartya Sen, Robert Solow, Paul Krugman, Joseph Stiglitz, and Esther Duflo, and they have been used in syllabi at institutions like Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and London School of Economics.

Abstracting and Indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed in major services including EBSCOhost, ProQuest, JSTOR, Web of Science, Scopus, and EconLit; metadata feeds interact with infrastructures run by CrossRef, ORCID, and Digital Object Identifier agencies. Libraries catalog entries appear in union catalogs such as WorldCat and are discoverable through university systems at Harvard Library, Bodleian Libraries, Library of Congress, and Cambridge University Library.

Notable Articles and Contributions

Notable survey articles have synthesized work by scholars including Kenneth Arrow, Amartya Sen, Gary Becker, Robert Lucas Jr., Thomas Piketty, Daniel Kahneman, Vernon Smith, Elinor Ostrom, Daron Acemoglu, Esther Duflo, Abhijit Banerjee, Angus Deaton, Eugene Fama, Robert Shiller, Claudia Goldin, Olivier Blanchard, and N. Gregory Mankiw. Contributions have clarified literatures surrounding events and institutions such as the Great Depression, the Global Financial Crisis (2007–2008), the Bretton Woods Conference, the Washington Consensus, and policy frameworks used by the Federal Reserve System and European Central Bank.

Editors-in-Chief and Editorial Board

Editors-in-chief and board members have been drawn from departments and centers at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Chicago, Yale University, Columbia University, London School of Economics, and research organizations including the National Bureau of Economic Research, Brookings Institution, and Russell Sage Foundation. Prominent economists who have served on editorial teams include scholars associated with Kenneth Arrow, Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, Robert Solow, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, and Elinor Ostrom.

Category:Economics journals