My experience (as co-editor of the American Economic Review) was not
so much that reviews were better, but they tended to be done more
quickly. (We didn't pay if it took too long.) This is something that
authors' want, of course, so there was no problem in charging
submitters a fee in order to pay the referees for timely reports.
Stevan Harnad wrote:
>
> On Tue, 13 Aug 2002, Hal Varian wrote:
>
> > [Re: paying referees]
> > Of course, it is not obvious that this sort of incentive would work
> > well with non-economists.
> >
> > I vaguely recall seeing a study of the impact of referee payments on
> > turnaround, but I couldn't find it in a casual search.
>
> This is what I have managed to locate: Does anyone know other
> references? It appears that the practise is peculiar mostly to
> economics, though other disciplines have considered it (though
> not adopted it) off and on across the years:
>
> Chang, JJ; Lai, CC. Is it worthwhile to pay referees? SOUTHERN ECONOMIC
> JOURNAL, 2001 OCT, V68 N2:457-463.
>
> ABSTRACT: There are puzzles in refereeing scholarly articles: Why
> are referees willing to review a paper without payment, and is it
> worthwhile to pay referees in order to raise the review rate? Two
> interesting results are found in this article. First, when reviewing
> services are driven by reciprocity, the equilibrium participation of
> referees may exhibit the so-called self-fulfilling feature. Second,
> the optimal payment may not be zero if the referee receives the
> benefit of reputation gained by refereeing an article. In particular,
> this article will show that those journals whose status quo review
> rate is lower tend to pay reviewers more while journals whose status
> quo review rate is higher do not find it worthwhile to pay referees
> enough. This result implies that, in order to raise its quality,
> a journal with a low review rate is more likely to adopt a strategy
> to increase pay and attract a critical mass of referees.
>
> Fialkoff, F. Paying to get a book reviewed ultimately compromises the review
> itself - Tainted reviews. LIBRARY JOURNAL, 2001 JUN 15, V126 N11:61.
>
> Engers, M; Gans, JS. Why referees are not paid (Enough)
> AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, 1998 DEC, V88 N5:1341-1349.
>
> Campanario JM. Peer review for journals as it stands today - Part 1
> SCI COMMUN 19 (3): 181-211 MAR 1998
>
> HAMERMESH DS FACTS AND MYTHS ABOUT REFEREEING
> JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 8 (1): 153-163 WIN 1994
>
> SPICER LJ PAY FOR REFEREES NOT A BRIBE
> SCIENTIST 1 (20): 10-10 SEP 7 1987
>
> BRIERLY A PAID REFEREES ARE NOT THE ANSWER TO POOR REVIEWS
> SCIENTIST 1 (14): 10-10 JUN 1 1987
>
> SPICER LJ SHOULD JOURNALS PAY REFEREES?
> SCIENTIST 1 (8): 13-13 MAR 9 1987
>
> JOHNS B. PAY REVIEWERS. NEW SCIENTIST, 1995 MAY 20, V146 N1978:48-48.
>
> LOEHLE C. PAYING PEER REVIEWERS. ISI PRESS DIGEST, 1989 NOV 27,
> N48:4808+.
>
> SMITH TJ PAID REFEREES NATURE 308 (5958): 397-397 1984
--
Hal Varian, Dean voice: 510-642-9980
SIMS, 102 South Hall fax: 510-642-5814
University of California hal_at_sims.berkeley.edu
Berkeley, CA 94720-4600 http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/~hal
Received on Wed Aug 14 2002 - 11:42:33 BST