Which is more valuable for someone in that field?
For example, JPub vs. IER, RAND vs. Games, JEEM vs. JEBO
Similarly ranked field journal vs. general interest journal?
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You should have some of each. So if all of your publications so far are in field journals, then the general interest journal is more valuable for you. If you have mostly general interest journal publications, the field journal is more valuable for you.
Beyond that, I tend to value top field journals slightly higher than equivalently ranked general journals, because there's a lot more randomness in the editorial process at the general journals, so the field journal publications are a more useful signal (i.e., a paper in the JPubE is almost certain to have been accepted because it's good, rather than because the editor and referees made a mistake, whereas that's less true at a more general journal like the IER).
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Beyond that, I tend to value top field journals slightly higher than equivalently ranked general journals, because there's a lot more randomness in the editorial process at the general journals, so the field journal publications are a more useful signal (i.e., a paper in the JPubE is almost certain to have been accepted because it's good, rather than because the editor and referees made a mistake, whereas that's less true at a more general journal like the IER).
this makes no sense. why is there more randomness in IER relative to the JPubE? What about the AER? Do you also discount it slightly because of randomness whereas the AEJ have less randomness?
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Beyond that, I tend to value top field journals slightly higher than equivalently ranked general journals, because there's a lot more randomness in the editorial process at the general journals, so the field journal publications are a more useful signal (i.e., a paper in the JPubE is almost certain to have been accepted because it's good, rather than because the editor and referees made a mistake, whereas that's less true at a more general journal like the IER).
this makes no sense. why is there more randomness in IER relative to the JPubE? What about the AER? Do you also discount it slightly because of randomness whereas the AEJ have less randomness?
It's harder for an editor to find good referees and make good decisions for a paper outside his/her field, so there's more randomness at more general journals. And yes, I slightly discount the AER because of the randomness. On the other hand, the mean quality at the AER is substantially higher than at the AEJs, and that greatly outweighs the difference in variance. But for cases where the mean quality is roughly the same (which is what this thread is about) the lower variance at field journals is an advantage.
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985a,
Pretty obviously you do not know much about journals. There is a good reason why the top five journals are all general, if with slight variations in terms of emphasis or fields. They got very top people from various fields onto their boards. So, the editor of one of those journals is not usually the one seeking out the referees. Instead, the editor's job is to assign the paper to a member of the board who is in fact probably a higher level person than the editor of the respective editor of the relevant field journal.
When one is dealing with similarly ranked journals it is a closer call, but again, those second tier general journals like EJ and ReStat tend to do the same thing: assign papers to members of their boards who are specialists in the respective fields, and those people are generally at about the same level as the editors of the field journals. In other words, there is no reason to expect one or the other to be better in general.
As it is, I agree with you, 985a, on the point that it is wise to have pubs in both kinds of journals.
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985a, Pretty obviously you do not know much about journals. There is a good reason why the top five journals are all general, if with slight variations in terms of emphasis or fields. They got very top people from various fields onto their boards. So, the editor of one of those journals is not usually the one seeking out the referees. Instead, the editor's job is to assign the paper to a member of the board who is in fact probably a higher level person than the editor of the respective editor of the relevant field journal.
Actually, you're the one who obviously doesn't know much about journals. The editorial board doesn't handle papers (i.e., choose referees and make accept/revise/reject decisions). Nor do "associate editors" typically handle papers -- those are (at most journals) just people who referee a lot. The people who handle papers are the editor and co-editors, and that is typically a small set of people. For example, the QJE currently has four editors (Barro, Helpman, Katz, and Stein). Up until fairly recently, it had only three editors. Those are the people who choose referees and make decisions. If your paper is in a field those four people don't cover (e.g., public econ), then the editor handling the paper will be someone from outside the field. Other top-five journals have slightly bigger groups of editors (the JPE currently has six, and I think the AER has eight), but that's still not enough to cover all fields of economics.
Moreover, even if one of the editors does cover your field, their expertise probably still won't be as close to the topic of the paper as would be true at a field journal. At a field journal, you have a group of roughly 4 - 10 editors/co-editors who are all in that field, and your paper will get assigned to the one whose expertise is closest to the topic of the paper.
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Sorry, 985a, no way you know as much about this as I do, although I do not want to arouse the wrath of Lady Gaga by getting too specific. Some journals do it like you say; some do it as the editor does it all (more likely with a field journal), the majority do it the way I described it.
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985a, the question was which is more valuable, i.e. which commands more respect. You can't expect a macro guy to rank JPub over IER when macro guys don't usually try to publish there. Of course, the macro guy will assert that JME is worth a lot more than IER, but the public finance guy can't see that. However, it's the top four general journals, not the IER that solve that problem. Let the no-gooding commence.
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I get your point, but disagree with the specific example. In my experience jpube is the field journal with the widest respect outside it's field, except for maybe jmetrics. I think extremely few people would rank ire higher for tenure considerations, for example.
985a, the question was which is more valuable, i.e. which commands more respect. You can't expect a macro guy to rank JPub over IER when macro guys don't usually try to publish there. Of course, the macro guy will assert that JME is worth a lot more than IER, but the public finance guy can't see that. However, it's the top four general journals, not the IER that solve that problem. Let the no-gooding commence.
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You seem to assume (perhaps from your exposure to EMJR) that everyone ridiculously insists journals outside their field are worthless. While there are certainly some of those people are out there, its many fewer than you might think. There is a huge cost to taking this attitude: it makes it hard to evaluate and hire the best colleagues.
And if you look at, say, the macroeconomists who will tell you they downweight Jpube to IER because they can't publish there, I think you will find that their revealed preferences from hiring decisions and tenure votes tell a different story.
Why should the macroeconomist respect it? He wants to know why you don't agree with him that JME > AER.