India's Labouring Poor: Editorial introduction

Econ Gov (2010) 11:1–2 DOI 10.1007/s10101-009-0072-0 EDITORIAL Editorial introduction Robert Dur · Amihai Glazer Published online: 8 January 2010 © The Author(s) 2010. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Economics of Governance has now published for 10 years. Over this time, we think we have particularly contributed to the study of conflict and to the study of corruption. We also want to publish research on corporate governance, a topic that is of even greater importance following the Great Recession. The journal appears to have done well, having published a paper by a Nobel prize winner, and ranking fourth out of 31 journals in public economics (see Francesc Pujol).1 Much of the credit for the success belongs to Kai Konrad, who co-founded the journal. For the new decade, we want to help researchers. We recognize that research is risky, with the uncertainties surrounding journal decisions increasing it. The risk is especially great when collecting data is so costly or difficult that the author cannot collect different data in response to referee comments on a paper (Think of the difference between revising a theory paper (easy) and redoing a field experiment (difficult, and perhaps impossible)). To alleviate the problem we offer pre-approval of a research design. For example, an author can submit to us a proposed research protocol for a field experiment. We will send it to referees to comment on the proposal. 1 Ranking journals following a matching model approach: An application to public economics journals. Journal of Public Economic Theory, 10(1), 2008, pp. 55–76. R. Dur (B) Department of Economics, Erasmus University, P.O. Box 1738, 3000 DR, Rotterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: dur@few.eur.nl A. Glazer (B) Department of Economics, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA e-mail: aglazer@uci.edu 123 2 R. Dur, A. Glazer We may then commit to an author that if the paper resulting from the research protocol is later submitted to us (though the author doesn’t have to), we will take the quality of the protocol as already settled. We will send the paper reporting the results to referees, but to comment on the data analysis, not on the protocol. Moreover, to avoid publication bias, and to encourage such research as found in field experiments, we will not consider the significance level of the statistical results as a criterion for publication. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. 123