Editorial

This issue of Eastern European Economics (EEE) marks the end of my 32-year tenure as editor. Certainly, the most rewarding aspect of my service as editor is the many professional relationships and personal friendships that I have been fortunate to forge with the journal’s authors and referees and with the members of the editorial board. I am grateful to the authors who have entrusted their manuscripts to EEE, for their graciousness in revising papers as needed and, at times, accepting what must have been disappointing decisions regarding their submissions. One of the reasons that the journal has been able to attract submissions of increasing quality and rigor is the timely and perceptive reports provided by our referees. Refereeing is neither easy nor rewarding, and the journal owes much to those who so freely gave of their time and expertise to provide our authors and me with the benefit of their guidance. Finally, I wish to thank the members of the editorial board, whose names are on the inside cover of the journal. Over the years, they have provided valuable insights, identified emerging intellectual trends that would affect the journal, organized a variety of special issues and symposia and steered promising papers in our direction. Finally, I am grateful to Arizona State University and to the Association for the Study of East European Economies and Cultures for providing logistical support for my work as editor.

Eastern European Economics was initially one of a series of so-called translation journals published by M. E. Sharpe, Inc. The objective of EEE was to give Western readers some idea of the economic research being published in Eastern Europe. Since the bulk of this material was published in the native languages of the region, the editor’s job was to scan the major East European economics journals and select those articles that were most reflective of the economic developments in the region. These articles would be translated into English and, with the permission of the East European publisher, published in EEE. When I became editor in the late 1980s, it quickly became evident that this “translations” model for the journal was no longer viable. Material being published in Eastern European journals badly lagged, and did not reflect, the intellectual ferment that was taking place in the region. Given the lags in obtaining journals from Eastern Europe, having selected articles translated, and obtaining permissions from the original publishers meant that EEE would be publishing material that dealt with the issues of economies and societies that no longer existed, and EEE would miss out on the stimulating and vital debates about the transition from socialism to capitalism. Consequently, I sought out working papers, policy proposals, and material being presented at conferences by Eastern European colleagues. This allowed EEE to publish timely material about the transition period and the lively debates it engendered in the economics profession.

The need to seek out material that was more timely than that provided through translations of journal articles from the region was reinforced by my experience in serving as an Examiner on Science and Technology in Eastern Europe for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. One of the key issues that the examiners faced was how to organize and support scientific research and publication in the region and what should be the respective responsibilities of universities and of the Institutes of Academies of Science. In particular, we stressed that, wherever the research was to be carried out, it should strive to meet world standards, which meant publishing in international journals rather than in local journals sponsored by universities and institutes. This impelled me to turn EEE into a pure submissions journal that would both deal with issues central to Eastern Europe and that would also meet international standards of scholarship in economics, thus providing Eastern European economists with a publication outlet that was sympathetic to the issues relating to the region’s economies while at the same time providing the rigor of an internationally recognized journal.

Over the past 30 plus years, economic research in the region has flourished and Eastern European economists regularly publish in the best economics journals in the world. Eastern European Economics has benefitted from these developments. It continues to attract excellent submissions from economists in the region, and as its reputation grew, from the United States, Western Europe, China, etc., and its impact factor continues to increase. What the potential for an economics journal oriented toward a specific region is among more broadly oriented journals remains to be seen, but I wish my successor as editor the best of luck in testing the limits.