The Optimal Order for Submitting Manuscripts.

There have been a number of articles written in the last few years describing the attributes of various economics journals, including their quality, acceptance practices, and so on. Presumably one could use these data both to determine which journals to buy and read, and to which journals to submit one's papers. This article is concerned with the latter issue; in particular, the author has derived the optimal strategy for submitting manuscripts to economics journals. A problem that is faced periodically is that of deciding as to which of the many available journals should a paper be sent? For highly specialized papers, the answer is sometimes obvious. In many cases, however, any one of several journals may be appropriate. This is the case dealt with in this article. The first problem in doing this analysis was to decide what the individual might be trying to accomplish by his or her journal choice. In general cases of this sort, one might suppose that individuals made decisions in order to maximize some kind of pecuniary return.