Six editors and nearly 60 advisory editors of Games and Economic Behavior resigned after the journal’s publisher decided not to renew the editor-in-chief’s contract.
In late July, Elsevier told Hervé Moulin, a business professor of the University of Glasgow, his six-year tenure as editor-in-chief of the journal would end in December. Moulin told Retraction Watch he was disappointed by the news, as he had expressed a desire to continue in his role.
The journal’s six editors resigned in the weeks following, according to an August 16 email, the text of which is also posted on the website for the Game Theory Society. Games and Economic Behavior is one of the group’s two official journals. As of August 19, 58 of the 62 advisory editors had resigned as well.
“Requests for explanations, first by me, then in a collective letter by the other six Editors, were dismissed by Elsevier which simply reaffirmed its legal power to make such decisions,” Moulin wrote in the email, which was cosigned by the six resigning editors. In the email, he also said Elsevier cited “closer alignment with Elsevier strategic priorities and publishing policies” as a reason for the move.
The journal joins our Mass Resignations List at number 57, marking the seventh mass exodus we have covered this year. In April, we reported on the resignation of editors from another Elsevier journal after the publisher similarly informed the editor-in-chief the company would not be renewing his contract.
Because the editors are required to give three months notice, the resigning board members wrote they plan to continue their duties at the journal until November 14. Moulin chose to resign at the same time rather than complete his contract.
Roberto Serrano, another editor resigning in November, told us Elsevier “has behaved in this incident arrogantly and inappropriately, by refusing to answer key questions about the future direction of the journal, which we had asked, and by suggesting names of new editors with no input from the academic community.”
Serrano, a professor of economics at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, added: “As the other editors of the journal, we wanted to own what those new initiatives and directions for the journal were, and their answer was complete silence.”
Moulin told us the publisher “crossed a fundamental red line in the good faith agreement between the Editorial Board and the publisher” by not consulting with the editorial board regarding future editorial appointments.
The publisher told the editorial board in an August 20 email: “We respect Hervé’s leadership experience, hence the outreach about potential successors was made with a view to including him in shaping GEB’s future — but he chose not to respond further and withdrew from those discussions.”
“Leadership transitions are a normal part of a journal’s evolution, and Elsevier’s priority is ensuring GEB continues to serve its editors, authors, and the research community well,” the publisher wrote.
An Elsevier spokesperson told us Moulin “reached the end of its three-year timespan, and the team at Elsevier deeply appreciates the Editor’s years of contribution to GEB.”
“No respectable academic journal can work under these rules, and so it is understandable that the resignations of our entire board of Advisory Editors —about 60 distinguished scholars— have followed the resignation of us, the seven editors,” Serrano said. “[W]hen a publisher goes as far as to suggest who the new editors should be, without any input from the academic community, I can’t work for a journal like that.”
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Of course the editors of a journal on game theory and economics would manage to solve a collective action problem.