The Publishing Game

Although I generally feel quite fortunate to be an academic economist, in my grumpier moods I might complain that the business of getting papers published in academic journals (which is the basis for how we're judged as scholars) can feel like a bit of a game (and frustrating one at that).

Now, it is a game.  The folks at Research Papers in Eonomics (RePEc) propose to bring us a "fantasy league" for armchair department chairs:

The IDEAS fantasy league allows you to pretend you are at the helm of an economics department. Your goal is to improve its ranking relative to other departments in the league. You can do this by trading economists and by choosing which ones to activate in your roster. 

In a blog post, Christian Zimmerman explains that it started as an April fools' joke.  At this point, it is still a proposal.

I would think that those who would play this game would be well-advised that their time might be better spent working on their research papers.  Of course, the same might be said of blogging.