Random Publications: All's Fair in Economics

Yours truly received the following email today from the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER):

Dear "New This Week" Subscribers:

Our practice to date has been to send all recipients of the NBER "New This Week" announcement a message with the new working papers listed in ascending numerical order assigned based on when each paper was ready for distribution.  A recent study (http://www.nber.org/papers/w21141) found that papers at or near the top of the list were downloaded more frequently than their lower-listed counterparts.

To avoid inequities across working papers that result from list placement differences, beginning next week, the order of papers in each of the more than 23,000 "New This Week" messages that we send will be determined randomly.  This will mean that roughly the same number of message recipients will see a given paper in the first position, in the second position, and so on.

I wanted to call this change to your attention so that you would not be puzzled if you noticed that papers were no longer listed in ascending numerical order.

Thank you for your interest in the latest findings of NBER researchers.

Jim Poterba
President, NBER

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Just to be sure everyone had an equal chance to read all parts of the message above, yours truly provides this helpful rearrangement:

To avoid inequities across working papers that result from list placement differences, beginning next week, the order of papers in each of the more than 23,000 "New This Week" messages that we send will be determined randomly.  This will mean that roughly the same number of message recipients will see a given paper in the first position, in the second position, and so on. 

President, NBER

Thank you for your interest in the latest findings of NBER researchers.Our practice to date has been to send all recipients of the NBER "New This Week" announcement a message with the new working papers listed in ascending numerical order assigned based on when each paper was ready for distribution.  A recent study (http://www.nber.org/papers/w21141) found that papers at or near the top of the list were downloaded more frequently than their lower-listed counterparts.

Dear "New This Week" Subscribers: 

Jim Poterba

I wanted to call this change to your attention so that you would not be puzzled if you noticed that papers were no longer listed in ascending numerical order.