From an e-mail I just received:

Following a three-year study and
discussion of the subject, the Ad Hoc Committee on Journals (Robert Hall
[chair], Judith Chevalier, David Colander, Peter Diamond, Alan Krueger, and
Daniel Rubinfeld) recommended to the Executive
Committee in April 2006 that the Association start four aggregated field journals,
each published in four issues per year. Each new journal will publish articles in a group of subfields with
loose boundaries. The new journals are
not subsidiary journals to the AER; each is of equal status. All four will begin publishing at the same
time, probably in early 2009.

Almost all other academic
societies publish more than three journals. Adding more journals will increase the diversity of editors of
Association journals.

The Executive Committee voted to
initiate the new field journals and name them:

(1) American
Economic Journal: Macroeconomics
(2) American
Economic Journal: Microeconomics
(3) American
Economic Journal: Economic Policy
(4) American
Economic Journal: Applied Economics

AEJ: Macroeconomics
primarily would include: macroeconomics; monetary economics; international
finance; aggregate aspects of development; economic growth; finance; and
comparative economic systems.

AEJ: Microeconomics
primarily would include: microeconomic theory; corporate finance; industrial
organization; micro theory aspects of economic development; and micro aspects
of international economics. 

AEJ: Economic Policy
primarily would include: public economics; urban and regional economics; public
policy aspects of health, education, and welfare; law and economics; economic
regulation; and environmental and natural resource economics.

AEJ: Applied Economics
primarily would include: labor; demography; empirical micro development; and
health, education, and welfare economics.

This is excellent news, as anyone familiar with Ted Bergstrom’s work on journal pricing will agree. Increasing the number of reasonably-priced, high-quality journals can only be a good thing.