Re: The True Cost of the Essentials (Implementing Peer Review)

From: Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Date: Wed, 14 Aug 2002 05:50:14 +0100

On Tue, 13 Aug 2002, Hal Varian wrote:

> [Re: paying referees]
> Of course, it is not obvious that this sort of incentive would work
> well with non-economists.
>
> I vaguely recall seeing a study of the impact of referee payments on
> turnaround, but I couldn't find it in a casual search.

This is what I have managed to locate: Does anyone know other
references? It appears that the practise is peculiar mostly to
economics, though other disciplines have considered it (though
not adopted it) off and on across the years:

Chang, JJ; Lai, CC. Is it worthwhile to pay referees? SOUTHERN ECONOMIC
JOURNAL, 2001 OCT, V68 N2:457-463.

    ABSTRACT: There are puzzles in refereeing scholarly articles: Why
    are referees willing to review a paper without payment, and is it
    worthwhile to pay referees in order to raise the review rate? Two
    interesting results are found in this article. First, when reviewing
    services are driven by reciprocity, the equilibrium participation of
    referees may exhibit the so-called self-fulfilling feature. Second,
    the optimal payment may not be zero if the referee receives the
    benefit of reputation gained by refereeing an article. In particular,
    this article will show that those journals whose status quo review
    rate is lower tend to pay reviewers more while journals whose status
    quo review rate is higher do not find it worthwhile to pay referees
    enough. This result implies that, in order to raise its quality,
    a journal with a low review rate is more likely to adopt a strategy
    to increase pay and attract a critical mass of referees.

Fialkoff, F. Paying to get a book reviewed ultimately compromises the review
itself - Tainted reviews. LIBRARY JOURNAL, 2001 JUN 15, V126 N11:61.

Engers, M; Gans, JS. Why referees are not paid (Enough)
AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, 1998 DEC, V88 N5:1341-1349.

Campanario JM. Peer review for journals as it stands today - Part 1
SCI COMMUN 19 (3): 181-211 MAR 1998

HAMERMESH DS FACTS AND MYTHS ABOUT REFEREEING
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES 8 (1): 153-163 WIN 1994

SPICER LJ PAY FOR REFEREES NOT A BRIBE
SCIENTIST 1 (20): 10-10 SEP 7 1987

BRIERLY A PAID REFEREES ARE NOT THE ANSWER TO POOR REVIEWS
SCIENTIST 1 (14): 10-10 JUN 1 1987

SPICER LJ SHOULD JOURNALS PAY REFEREES?
SCIENTIST 1 (8): 13-13 MAR 9 1987

JOHNS B. PAY REVIEWERS. NEW SCIENTIST, 1995 MAY 20, V146 N1978:48-48.

LOEHLE C. PAYING PEER REVIEWERS. ISI PRESS DIGEST, 1989 NOV 27,
N48:4808+.

SMITH TJ PAID REFEREES NATURE 308 (5958): 397-397 1984
Received on Wed Aug 14 2002 - 05:50:14 BST