Book Reviews

Editor's Note: Guidelines for Selecting Books to Review Occasionally, we receive questions regarding the selection of books reviewed in the Journal of Economic Literature. A statement of our guidelines for book selection might be useful, therefore. The general purpose of our book reviews is to help keep members of the American Economic Association informed of significant English-language publications in economics research. Annotations are published of all books received. However, we receive many more books than we are able to review, so choices must be made in selecting books for review. We try to identify for review scholarly, well-researched books that embody serious and original research on a particular topic. We do not review textbooks. Other things being equal, we avoid volumes of collected papers such as festschriften and conference volumes. Often such volumes pose difficult problems for the reviewer, who may find himself having to describe and evaluate many different contributions. Among such volumes, we prefer those on a single, well-defined theme that a typical reviewer may develop in his review. A volume that collects together papers from a wide assortment of different topics is not preferred to one devoted exclusively to one topic. We avoid volumes that collect previously published papers unless there is some material value added from bringing the papers together. Also, we refrain from reviewing second or revised editions unless the revisions of the original edition are really substantial. Our policy is to decline offers to review, (and unsolicited reviews of) particular books. We have examined the consequences of an alternative policy and have determined that we lack the resources to deal appropriately with unsolicited reviews. Coauthorship of reviews is not forbidden but is discouraged, and we ask our invited reviewers to discuss with us first any changes in the authorship or assigned length of a review.