Publishing Economics: How Slow? Why Slow? Is Slow Productive? Fixing Slow?

Publishing in economics proceeds much more slowly on average than the natural sciences, and other social sciences finance. It is even relatively slower at extremes. We demonstrate that of lag, especially extremes, arises from authors' dilatory behavior revising their work. The marginal product an additional round re-submission top journals productive subsequent citations; but conditional re-submission, taking time not productive, authors spending associated with reduced scholarly impact. offer several proposals to speed up publication process. These include no-revisions policies, such as Economic Inquiry's; limits articles, editors waiting for referees.