American Economic Review (AER)
Quarterly Journal of Economics (QJE)
Journal of Political Economy (JPE)
Econometrica (ECMA/ECTA)
Review of Economic Studies (REStud/RES)
Scott and Mitias (1996) added Review of Economics and Statistics to the top 4, i.e. American Economic Review, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Econometrica. In recent years, RESTUD has taken RESTAT's place as the 5th journal.