American Economic Review acceptance rates

Year Submitted Published % Published

1980 641 127 20
1981 784 115 15
1982 820 120 15
1983 932 129 14
1984 921 138 15
1985 952 128 13
1986 987 123 12.50
1987 843 99 12
1988 844 100 12
1989 946 116 12
1990 911 100 11.50
1991 884 110 12
1992 950 108 11
1993 900 94 10
1994 953 91 10
1995 929 88 9.50
1996 976 85 8.70
1997 976 66 6.80
1998 900 71 7.90
1999 927 79 8.50
2000 989 85 8.60
2001 931 96 10.30
2002 990 103 10.40
2003 1,223 106 8.67
2004 1,265 92 7.27
2005 1,337 98 7.33
2006 1,304 98 7.52
2007 1,308 101 7.7
2008 1,326 99 7.5

These are the numbers for the AER (one of the very top journals in economics for those readers who are not economists) for the past 29 years.

It is hard to know what to make of these numbers, though, because they do not condition on manuscript quality. Submission costs have fallen over this period and the AER tries not to do a lot of desk rejections where the editor sends the paper back to the author without first sending it out to referees for comment. So it seems likely that the average quality of the submissions has fallen over this period. Thus, the pattern here is consistent even with the probability of participation increasing for high quality papers. Hmmm ....

Hat tip: Lones Smith