Very quickly after the onset of the epidemic a large number of policy papers have been written by economic scholars, many of which have appeared on VoxEU. This has been enormously helpful in improving our understanding of policy options. The next step requires more formal investigations, based on explicit theory and/or empirical evidence. This is what Covid Economics, Vetted and Real-Time Papers aims to provide.
Covid Economics is based on three principles:
- Since the onset of the Covid outbreak, the economics profession has been extraordinarily reactive on traditional and social media. Now comes the time for academic research to improve knowledge.
- Given how fast the situation is changing, there is a need for real-time publication of quality research results.
- There is a need to collect, vet and publish submissions online.
In order to speed up the process, all submissions will be promptly evaluated by the Editorial Board, over a maximum of 48 hours, on an accept/reject basis, i.e. no resubmission and no referee-style report. When a sufficient number of papers are accepted, an issue of Covid Economics will be published online by CEPR Press. Thus its frequency will be determined endogenously. In order to attract the best works, papers are published as pre-prints, meaning they can be later be submitted to regular professional journals. CEPR-affiliated researchers may also issue them in the CEPR Discussion Paper series.
The title Covid Economics, Vetted and Real-Time Papers has been chosen deliberately:
- Vetted makes it clear that the selection process aims at insuring a quality standard, but it does not involve the usual back-and-forth of standard review processes.
- Real-time indicates that the time between submission and publication is very short - in the order of days.
- Papers to further clarify the difference with professional journals and thus to make it possible for subsequent submission to regular professional reviews.
The Covid-19 breakout challenges all areas of economics including, but not only, health, industrial organization, macroeconomics, finance, history, development, inequality, political economy, public finance. It concerns theory as well as empirical evidence. A large Editorial Board has been assembled to be able to deal with all these aspects. We also aim to have a wide geographical coverage.
Submissions are invited as of today via the CEPR website. We prefer reasonably short contributions (approx. 5000 words) though this is not a requirement; submissions could be longer or shorter than this.
