LOEX-of-the-West 2008

In issue 54 of the Heterodox Economics Newsletter (December 2007), the case of Dr Rune Skarstein was delineated - he was denied promotion to full professor because he did not publish in international peer-reviewed journals of high (that is mainstream) quality. In a comment on the case, Wolfram Elsner suggested that a research project be established on clustering and ranking heterodox journals. This discussion aroused the interest of Tom Abeles, the editor of On the Horizon, who informed the guest editors of this e-book that he and his editorial board have been concerned about the general area of forms of academic publishing for a while. In particular, the conflict between heterodox and mainstream journals is seen as part of a larger issue that includes open access publishing on the internet. Subsequent discussion resulted in putting out a call for papers for this e-book that would deal with one of the following themes: