Journal of Comments and Replications in Economics
Publication opportunities even at an early stage of the doctorate
After a start-up phase, the Journal of Comments and Replications (JCRE) published by the ZBW is now experiencing a small but steady influx of international submissions. It is the only journal in the economic sciences that is dedicated exclusively to replications and commentaries.
The editorial team defines replications as reproductions of published papers in which it is checked whether the programme code can be executed or reprogrammed correctly and leads to the published results. However, it also includes replications in the broader sense, which check the results of the original paper with other data or other methods. Commentaries are – predominantly critical – discussions of a published result with regard to assumptions, methods or interpretations. The JCRE emerged from a DFG project and is currently jointly funded by the Joachim Herz Foundation and the ZBW.
In 2024, nine articles could be published, including a response from original authors (i.e. the authors whose work was replicated) and a corrigendum from the editors. Original authors are always invited to publish a response to the replications and comments.
In 2024, the editor of the Journal of Comments and Replications, W. Robert Reed, wrote to several dozen econometrics lecturers in renowned international doctoral programmes. The aim is to attract more doctoral students to submit to JCRE. In economics, the aim is not usually to submit research papers to peer-reviewed journals very early on in the doctoral programme. Rather, it is essential for candidates aiming for an academic career to have several articles with good publication potential towards the end of their doctorate. Acceptance for publication at is then usually only expected shortly before or during the postdoc phase. Due to the pronounced working paper culture, there are also other opportunities to disseminate one’s own research results beforehand. However, this means that many doctoral students do not gain any early experience with journal submission processes. If they do submit, in many cases a co-author with more experience will manage the process.
In economics, papers are often replicated when learning research methods without the results of the replication being published. The Journal of Comments and Replications offers the opportunity to submit your own replication in the first or second year of a doctorate and to go through the entire publication process, including correspondence with editors, resubmitting and replying to referees, partial reactions from original authors and proofreading the galley proof.
At the same time, these publications make an important contribution to scientific discourse, as results are publicly scrutinised that would otherwise at best remain informal and unpublished. Articles that are replicated for JCRE are often very influential in economics. More than one original paper whose replication was published in 2024 had well over 1,000 citations on Google Scholar. Replications thus verify a knowledge base on which many other papers build.
The ZBW will publish its own graduate course on Research Transparency and Good Scientific Practice 2025 as an Open Educational Resource. Together with the Journal of Comments and Replications, this course is available to lecturers in Germany and abroad to enable their doctoral students to gain early publication experience and make an independent contribution to Open Science.
*This text was written on 17 April 2025.
This text was translated on 12 May 2025 using DeeplPro.