The Review of Black Political Economy

Last updated

History

Background and founding

Robert S. Browne decided to create The Review of Black Political Economy in order to create "an hospitable arena in which black people could explore ideas as to how they might bring about effective and substantial improvement in their collective economic position." [3] It became a platform for people to publish articles and commentaries on the conditions of black people in the United States from an economic and sociological standpoint. Initially the Review was a product of the Black Economic Research Center (BERC) which Robert Browne founded and ran until 1976. After that, ownership was transferred to the National Economic Association. [4]

Browne chose the term "Political Economy" rather than economics for the title because he felt that "in America at least, for people to effect any significant alteration in their economic position, they will first be obliged to develop a sound political strategy." [5] The initial aim of The Review was to provide a mixture of scholarly and non-scholarly articles which would appeal to a wide range of readers - but Robert S. Browne admitted that this was an ambitious undertaking. Early issues of the journal included a mix of articles by scholars and practitioners. Graduate students were encouraged to submit their research for publication.

The first issue of The Review included seven articles: "Outputs of Minority Entrepreneurship Programs" (Glenn Dixon); "Toward an Overall Assessment of Our Alternatives" (Robert S. Browne); "The Myth and Irrationality of Black Capitalism" (James Boggs); "The Black Manifesto" (James Forman and Others); "What Do You People Want?" (Richard F. America); "The Basic Economics of the Urban and Racial Crisis" (Daniel R. Fusfeld); and "Brimmer and Black Capitalism: An Analysis (Charles Tate). There were also four book reviews in the first issue : "Black Capitalism: Strategy for Business in the Ghetto by Theodore L. Cross" (Thaddeus Spratlen, reviewer); "Race and Poverty: The Economics of Discrimination" edited by John F. Kain (Charles Z. Wilson, reviewer); "The Tenement Landlord by George Sternlieb" (Robert S. Browne, reviewer); and "Poverty and Discrimination by Lester C. Thurlow" (John Handy, reviewer).

Publishing agents and editors

The journal has had three publishing agents over its 50 years. Transactions Books at Rutgers University was the initial agent. Springer was the second publisher. The current publisher is Sage Publications.

The Review has had 12 editors and 3 associate editors since its founding:

Features and focus

The Review of Black Political Economy (RBPE) promotes critical inquiry in all areas of social and economic inequality focused on African Americans, the African diaspora, and other non-white marginalized populations. As the journal of the National Economic Association, RBPE publishes scholarship that examines public and private policies and their impact on economic and social inequality. It actively seeks articles that utilize economics, political science, public policy, sociology, and other social science theory to examine public and private policies for their ability to reduce economic inequality. [6]

Articles

The journal consists of yearly volumes with quarterly published issues. The main research published in The Review of Black Political Economy consists primarily of papers that are typically less than 20 pages long.

Book reviews

The Review of Black Political Economy occasionally features book reviews, either solicited by the editors or blind reviewed unsolicited submissions from its readership. The books being reviewed center around aspects of economics and the reviews published in the journal are typically no more than 10 pages long. Several notable books that were reviewed include African Americans in the U.S. Economy by Cecilia Conrad, John Whitehead, Patrick Mason, and James Stewart, The End of Poverty by Jeffrey Sachs, and Liberating E Economics: Feminist Perspectives on Families, Work, and Globalization by Drucilla K. Barker and Susan F. Feiner. [7] [8] [9]

Presidential and other addresses

The Review of Black Political Economy also occasionally publishes presidential addresses from the heads of the National Economic Association, which are given at the annual meeting of the organization, usually held in conjunction with the Allied Social Sciences Association conference. The journal has also published written versions of presentations by winners of the NEA Samuel Z. Westerfield Award and the talks in the Sir W. Arthur Lewis lecture series. Some of the notable addresses published by The Review of Black Political Economy include the following:

Presidential addresses:

W. Arthur Lewis Lectures:

Publication guidelines and editorial policy

The Review of Black Political Economy publishes a variety of writings including research notes, editorials, and articles. The journal runs on a blinded peer review process to uphold the quality of the work. Anyone who made any contribution to the writing must be listed as one of the authors of the writing. The Review of Black Political Economy makes it mandatory for authors to mention their funding provided for their work. It is also required that the writing submitted for publication in The Review is not being considered to be published in any other journal. [10] [11]

Effectiveness

Research has been conducted to ascertain whether The Review of Black Political Economy has had a noticeable effect on the number and contributions of Black economists. The Review of Black Political Economy was started with a few core values in mind, providing a platform for scholars to discuss socioeconomic topics such as discrimination and poverty as they relate to Black populations. Results from a bibliometric analysis indicate that the academic standing of Black economists has been improved due to the existence of The Review of Black Political Economy, and the original issues the journal formed to address have seen some improvement. [12] These findings imply a 'plausible counterfactual,' meaning that a lack of existence of the journal would result in a lower overall scholarly status for Black economists in the profession. [13] One example of this in the literature is the publications released under two female Black editors, Margaret Simms and Cecilia Conrad. By having these two serve as the first two Black female journal editors, more academic involvement was encouraged and inspired within the field and demographic, and this was facilitated by The Review of Black Political Economy. [14]

Landmark papers

Many significant economic findings throughout many years have been published in The Review of Black Political Economy. The following list is a selection of economic publications published in The Review of Black Political Economy, all of which were heavily cited due to their impact, and the citation for the article in which they were published.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Becker</span> American economist (1930–2014)

Gary Stanley Becker was an American economist who received the 1992 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. He was a professor of economics and sociology at the University of Chicago, and was a leader of the third generation of the Chicago school of economics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Economic inequality</span> Distribution of income or wealth between different groups

Economic inequality is an umbrella term for a) income inequality or distribution of income, b) wealth inequality or distribution of wealth, and c) consumption inequality. Each of these can be measured between two or more nations, within a single nation, or between and within sub-populations.

Robert Joseph Barro is an American macroeconomist and the Paul M. Warburg Professor of Economics at Harvard University. Barro is considered one of the founders of new classical macroeconomics, along with Robert Lucas Jr. and Thomas J. Sargent. He is currently a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and co-editor of the influential Quarterly Journal of Economics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Immigration</span> Movement of people into another country or region to which they are not native

Immigration is the international movement of people to a destination country of which they are not usual residents or where they do not possess nationality in order to settle as permanent residents. Commuters, tourists, and other short-term stays in a destination country do not fall under the definition of immigration or migration; seasonal labour immigration is sometimes included, however.

Occupational segregation is the distribution of workers across and within occupations, based upon demographic characteristics, most often gender. Other types of occupational segregation include racial and ethnicity segregation, and sexual orientation segregation. These demographic characteristics often intersect. While a job refers to an actual position in a firm or industry, an occupation represents a group of similar jobs that require similar skill requirements and duties. Many occupations are segregated within themselves because of the differing jobs, but this is difficult to detect in terms of occupational data. Occupational segregation compares different groups and their occupations within the context of the entire labor force. The value or prestige of the jobs are typically not factored into the measurements.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William Spriggs</span> American economist (1955–2023)

William Edward Spriggs was an American economist who was a professor of economics at Howard University, chief economist for the AFL-CIO, and Assistant Secretary of Labor for Policy in the Obama administration from 2009 to 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erik Thorbecke</span> American economist

Erik Thorbecke is a development economist. He is a co-originator of the widely used Foster-Greer-Thorbecke poverty measure and played a significant role in the development and popularization of Social Accounting Matrix. Currently, he is H. E. Babcock Professor of Economics, Emeritus, and Graduate School Professor at Cornell University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William A. Darity Jr.</span> American economist (1953–)

William A. "Sandy" Darity Jr. is an American economist and social sciences researcher. Darity's research spans economic history, development economics, economic psychology, and the history of economic thought, but most of his research is devoted to group-based inequality, especially with respect to race and ethnicity. His 2005 paper in the Journal of Economics and Finance established Darity as the 'founder of stratification economics.' His varied research interests have also included the trans-Atlantic slave trade, African American reparations and the economics of black reparations, and social and economic policies that affect inequities by race and ethnicity. For the latter, he has been described as "perhaps the country’s leading scholar on the economics of racial inequality."

Sanjiv M. Ravi Kanbur, is T.H. Lee Professor of World Affairs, International Professor of Applied Economics, and Professor of Economics at Cornell University. He worked for the World Bank for almost two decades and was the director of the World Development Report.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pavlina R. Tcherneva</span> American economist

Pavlina R. Tcherneva is an American economist, of Bulgarian descent, working as associate professor of economics at Bard College. She is also a research associate at the Levy Economics Institute and expert at the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Darrick Hamilton</span> American economist

Darrick Hamilton is an American academic and administrator who is currently the Henry Cohen Professor of Economics and Urban Policy and a University Professor at The New School for Social Research. He is also the director of the Institute for the Study of Race, Stratification and Political Economy at The New School. Prior to assuming these roles in January 2021, Hamilton was executive director of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity at Ohio State University. He is also the associate director of the Diversity Initiative for Tenure in Economics at Duke University; Senior Research Associate the Samuel DuBois Cook Center on Social Equity; a past President of the National Economic Association; and former Co-Associate Director of the American Economic Association Summer Training and Minority Fellowship Program.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jessica Gordon Nembhard</span> American economist

Jessica Gordon Nembhard is an American political economist. She has published books and articles in major economics journals. She is currently Professor of Community Justice and Social Economic Development in the Department of Africana Studies at John Jay College, City University of NY.

The European Historical Economics Society (EHES) is Europe's leading research organization and learned society dedicated to the study of economic history. Founded in 1991, the EHES supports academic research within the discipline of economic history; organizes an annual conference; publishes regular working papers; and provides resources for early- and mid-career scholars. The EHES promotes "the advancement of education in European economic history through the study of European economies and economic history." The current president of the EHES is Pierre-Cyrille Hautcœur, a French economist and professor of economics at the Paris School of Economics.

Rhonda Michèle Williams was an American professor, activist and political economist whose work combined economics with multiple other social fields including race and gender analysis, law, politics, public policy and cultural studies. She aimed to show how the examination of the roles of race and gender in economics benefitted from an inclusive approach rather than a separate and fragmented analysis in order to ensure that issues of economic inequality and discrimination were aptly addressed. Williams was also noted as being consistent in aligning her own ethics with economic analysis resulting in a legacy in the political economy of race and gender.

The National Economic Association (NEA) is a learned society established in 1969, focused on initiatives in the field of economics.

Marcus Alexis was professor emeritus of management & strategy at the Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management. He was a former chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, and a commissioner with the Interstate Commerce Commission during the Carter Administration. He was the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1959, and was known for his work training and mentoring other African American Economists. He was awarded the Samuel Z. Westerfield Award by the National Economic Association in 1979, and was also awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the University of Minnesota and an Honorary Doctorate from Brooklyn College.

Baby bonds are a government policy in which every child receives at birth a publicly funded trust account, potentially with more generous funding for lower-income families. Economists William Darity and Darrick Hamilton proposed the policy in 2010 as a mechanism to reduce the racial wealth gap in the United States. A 2019 analysis of the proposal by Naomi Zewde projects that baby bonds would reduce the median racial wealth gap between white and black young Americans from a factor of 16 to a factor of 1.4.

Gary A. Hoover is an American professor of economics and director of the Murphy Institute at Tulane University. From January 2015 until December 2020 he was a professor and Chair of the Economics Department at the University of Oklahoma. He was the first and only African American ever hired in that department. In August 1998 he joined the Department of Economics, Finance and Legal Studies at the University of Alabama. He was the first and only African American ever hired in that department, on the tenure track. He was tenured in August 2004 and in 2005 became the Assistant Dean for Graduate Student and Faculty Development in the Culverhouse College of Commerce while maintaining full teaching and research duties. He was granted full professor in August 2010. In March 2017 he founded and became the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Economics, Race, and Policy. He has published extensively on race and inequality in the United States, and is a leading scholar on plagiarism and other types of misconduct in the economics profession.

Rhonda Vonshay Sharpe is an American economist who is the founder and current president of the Women's Institute for Science, Equity, and Race (WISER). She is a feminist economist who has been a faculty member at an extensive list of colleges and universities and served as president of the National Economic Association from 2017 to 2018.

References

  1. ↑ "The Review of Black Political Economy". SAGE Publications Inc. 2017-12-22. Retrieved 2020-09-17.
  2. ↑ "The Review of Black Political Economy".
  3. ↑ "Publisher's Preface to the Inaugural Issue". The Review of Black Political Economy. 1 (1): iii–iv. 1970. doi:10.1007/BF03037536. ISSN   0034-6446. S2CID   189844554.
  4. ↑ Browne, Robert S. (1977-06-01). "Publisher's Foreword". The Review of Black Political Economy. 7 (4): 339–340. doi:10.1007/BF02689443. ISSN   0034-6446. S2CID   154457243.
  5. ↑ "Publisher's Preface to the Inaugural Issue". The Review of Black Political Economy. 1 (1): iii–iv. 1970-03-01. doi:10.1007/BF03037536. ISSN   0034-6446. S2CID   189844554.
  6. ↑ "The Review of Black Political Economy". SAGE Journals. Retrieved 2021-04-05.
  7. ↑ Feiner, Susan F. (September 2005). "Book Review: African Americans in the U.S. Economy". The Review of Black Political Economy. 33 (2): 55–60. doi:10.1007/s12114-005-1014-x. S2CID   153706519.
  8. ↑ Henry, C. Michael (September 2005). "Book Review: The End of Poverty: How We can Make it Happen in our Lifetime". The Review of Black Political Economy. 33 (2): 61–68. doi:10.1007/s12114-005-1015-9. S2CID   154803193.
  9. ↑ Stewart, James B. (March 2006). "Book Review: Liberating Economics: Feminist Perspectives on Families, Work, and Globalization". The Review of Black Political Economy. 33 (4): 63–65. doi:10.1007/BF02915423. S2CID   142061392.
  10. ↑ "The Review of Black Political Economy". SAGE Publications Inc. 22 December 2017.
  11. ↑ "Statement of Editorial Policy". The Review of Black Political Economy. 34 (1–2): 1. March 2007. doi:10.1007/s12114-007-9008-5. S2CID   153981879.
  12. ↑ Price, Gregory N.; Allen, Maxton (January 2014). "The Scholarly Status of Blacks in the Economics Profession: Have the National Economic Association and the Review of Black Political Economy Mattered?". The Review of Black Political Economy. 41 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1007/s12114-012-9155-1. S2CID   153325981.
  13. ↑ Starr, William. "Counterfactuals". Stanford. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 18 November 2020.
  14. ↑ Price, Gregory N.; Allen, Maxton (January 2014). "The Scholarly Status of Blacks in the Economics Profession: Have the National Economic Association and the Review of Black Political Economy Mattered?". The Review of Black Political Economy. 41 (1): 1–11. doi:10.1007/s12114-012-9155-1. S2CID   153325981.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.