A Stock-Flow Framework for Editorial Board Dynamics: The Case of Economics Journals, 1866-2019

TL;DR

This paper introduces a formal stock-flow framework to analyze the long-term dynamics of editorial boards in economics journals from 1866 to 2019, revealing phases of growth, stability, and structural change.

Contribution

It develops a novel longitudinal model for editorial board dynamics and applies it to a comprehensive historical database, uncovering structural shifts over more than a century.

Findings

Growth phase from 1946 to 1956 marked by expansion and new journal founding.

Recent years show low flux and increased stability in editorial communities.

Framework enables long-term analysis of journal evolution and gatekeeping structures.

Abstract

Research on the editorial boards of scholarly journals has predominantly relied on static, cross-sectional data, focusing on their composition or interlocking editorships at single points in time. To address this gap, a formal stock-flow framework is developed for analyzing the longitudinal dynamics of editorial boards. The model integrates three interconnected layers: journal demographics, the dynamics of editorial positions, and the dynamics of board members. This framework is applied to the Gatekeepers of Economics Longitudinal Database (GOELD), which contains annual snapshots of editorial boards for approximately 1,700 economics journals from 1866 to 2006 (by decade), plus the years 2012 and 2019. The period until 1946 was characterized by small-scale: few journals and compact editorial communities. The decade from 1946 to 1956 marked the shift toward a ''big science'' model, initiating an era of expansionary growth fueled primarily by the founding of new journals. The contemporary period (2006-2019) appears to represent a structural break, characterized by low flux and more stable and more closed editorial communities. The results shows that the proposed framework enables a dynamic, long-term analysis of how journals and their gatekeeping systems evolve, grow, and structure themselves.