The Internet poses numerous short- and long-term opportunities and challenges for almost all the operations of the American Economic Association (AEA). This article examines these challenges and proposes various actions. In general terms, the AEA should first adapt its operations to maintain a constant level of service to its members in this changing environment. Second, the AEA charter calls for the “encouragement of perfect freedom of economic discussion,” and the cost-reducing promise of the Internet and associated computer technologies brings us closer to this goal, but their full potential requires their adoption by the AEA. Finally, the AEA is uniquely positioned as a large, capable nonprofit to implement these new services.
Allied Social Science Associations. (2000). Allied Social Science Associations program. Nashville, TN: Author.
2.
American Economic Association. (2004). AEA general information. Retrieved August 5, 2004, from www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/org.htm
3.
APS News. (2000). APS council approves new journal pricing model. Retrieved October 2, 2003, from www.aps.org/apsnews/0100/010012.html
4.
Broeck, C. V. D. (1999). A “warp drive” with more reasonable total energy requirements. Retrieved October 2, 2003, from http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/9905084
5.
Cameron, R. D. (1997). A universal citation database as a catalyst for reform in scholarly communication. First Monday, 2(4). Retrieved October 2, 2003, from www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue2_4/cameron/index.html
6.
Cruz, J. M. B., & Krichel, T. (1999). Distributed cataloging on the Internet: The RePEc project. Retrieved October 2, 2003, from http://openlib.org/home/krichel/papers/jagt.html
7.
Ellison, G. (2002). The slowdown of the economics publishing process. Journal of Political Economy, 110(5), 6.
8.
Ginsparg, P., Halpern, J., Lagoze, C., Harnad, S., Hall, W., & Carr, L. (1999). Integrating and navigating e-print archives through citation-linking. Retrieved October 2, 2003, from www.princeton.edu/%7Eharnad/citation.html
9.
Goffe, W. L., & Parks, R. P. (1997). The future information infrastructure in economics. The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 11(3), 75-94.
10.
Goldberg, C. (1997, February 25). Cyberspace still no substitute for face-to-face meetings. New York Times, p. A12.
11.
Haber, S., & Storentta, W. S. (1992). A stamp of authority. Bellcore Exchange, 8(6), 15-20.
12.
Harnad, S. (1995, May 12). The postgutenberg galaxy: How to get there from here. Times Higher Education Supplement. Retrieved October 2, 2003, from http://cogsci.soton.ac.uk/%7Eharnad/THES/thes.html
13.
Hutchinson, B. E., & Zivney, T. L. (1995). The publication profile of economists. Journal of Economic Education, 26(1), 59-79.
14.
Langer, L. (2000) Physicists in the new era of electronic publishing. Physics Today, 53(8). Retrieved October 2, 2003, from www.aip.org/pt/vol-53/iss-8/p35.html
15.
Modern Language Association of America (Ed.). (1998). Program of the 1998 Convention, 27-30 December, San Francisco, California. Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 113(6).
16.
Odlyzko, A. M. (1997). The slow evolution of electronic publishing. Retrieved October 2, 2003, from www.research.att.com/%7Eamo/doc/slow.evolution.txt
17.
Parks, R. (2002). The Faustian grip of academic publishing. Retrieved October2, 2003, from http://econwpa.wustl.edu:80/eps/mic/papers/0202/0202005.pdf
18.
Siegfried, J. J. (1998). Who is a member of the AEA?The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 12(2), 211-222.
19.
Siegfried, J. J. (1999). Minutes of the annual meeting, New York, NY, January 4, 1999. American Economic Review, 89(2), 447-448.
20.
Siegfried, J. J., Saunders, P., Stinar, E., & Zhang, H. (1996). How is introductory economics taught in America?Economic Inquiry, 34, 182-192.
21.
Tittel, E., Mikula, N., & Chandak, R. (2002). XML for dummies (3rd ed.). Foster City, CA: IDG Press.
22.
Varian, H. (1998). The future of electronic journals. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 4(1). Retrieved October 2, 2003, from www.press.umich.edu/jep/04-01/varian.html
23.
Varian, H., Deaton, A., Goffe, B., Ekwurzel, D., Parks, B., & McMillan, J. (2000, October). Report from AEA Committee on Electronic Publishing. Unpublished manuscript, American Economic Association, Nashville, TN.
24.
Varmus, H. (1999). A proposal for electronic publications in the biomedical sciences. Retrieved October 2, 2003, from www.nih.gov/welcome/director/ebiomed/53ebio.htm
