Journal of Political Economy


The Journal of Political Economy is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. Established by James Laurence Laughlin in 1892, it covers both theoretical and empirical economics. In the past, the journal published quarterly from its introduction through 1905, ten issues per volume from 1906 through 1921, and bimonthly from 1922 through 2019. The editor-in-chief is Harald Uhlig.
It is considered one of the top five journals in economics.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is abstracted and indexed in EBSCO, ProQuest, Research Papers in Economics, Current Contents/Social & Behavioral Sciences, and the Social Sciences Citation Index. According to the Journal Citation Reports, the journal has a 2017 impact factor of 5.247, ranking it 18th out of 353 journals in the category "Economics".
The journal is department-owned University of Chicago journal.

2020 controversy

In 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, the journal became embroiled in a controversy when its editor-in-chief Harald Uhlig made widely criticized remarks about the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests against the killing of George Floyd, comparing the BLM movement to "flat-earthers". Uhlig apologized for his remarks. His remarks brought attention to older comments of his where he described calls for greater diversity in Hollywood films as "strange", and where he said of the NFL kneeling protests, "Would you defend football players waving the confederate flag and dressing in Ku Klux Klan garb during the playing of the national anthem?" Subsequently, there were calls from economists that he resign as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Political Economy, arguing that it was inappropriate for him to be a powerful gatekeeper in the discipline. The advisory board of JPE later put him on leave.

Notable papers

Among the most influential papers that appeared in the Journal of Political Economy are: