History of a Journal: Public Finance Quarterly to Public Finance Review

Context: Conventions and the Job Market

I was in my third year at the University of Virginia, writing my dissertation as a Ford Foundation Doctoral Research Fellow. The SEA meeting (and thus the southern academic job market) was held in Atlanta that year. When the list of Ford Foundation Fellows was announced, I was contacted by Wilson Schmidt, head of the economics department at VPI (Virginia Polytechnic Institute), and he invited me to consider a tenure track position there. ² My proximity to Blacksburg and announcement of my Ford Foundation Fellowship evidently had given rise to his interest in me as a prospective faculty member. I had a campus visit to Blacksburg prior to the SEA meeting. I liked what I saw, and I thought VPI was something of which I would like to be part. At the time, it was the one position in which I was particularly interested. Wilson Schmidt and I had a follow-up interview scheduled at the SEA meeting.

I considered certain other scheduled interviews as a kind of practice, the equivalent of exhibition games prior to the regular season. Still other interviews were a matter of courtesy. My wild card was an interview with Harvard at the American Economic Association (AEA) meeting in San Francisco. Richard Caves had talked to James Buchanan and told him that Harvard wanted one of his students. Buchanan had recommended me. I knew Wilson Schmidt was offering me a position, but he and I agreed that my decision could be made after the AEA meeting. He knew about the Harvard interview and advised me to wait until afterward to make my decision. I always have appreciated his continuous concern for what was best for me.

Arrival: James Buchanan and the Snavely Side Payment

I remember standing in the lobby of the convention hotel in Atlanta, huddled tightly as a naval knot with three other doctoral student friends who were as nervous and insecure as I was, each of us an émigré in a new and unfamiliar land as alien as Mars. All of us were attending our first convention, and we were rookies in the professional meeting league. We stood nearby the registration desk to see the real economists upon their arrival. We hoped mostly to see someone famous, someone whose work we had studied. By now, we had seen the program and knew who the possibilities were.

Mark Pauly, Tom Willett, Tom Ireland, and I watched with restrained excitement as Mr. Buchanan entered the hotel and proceeded imperiously to the registration desk, announcing his arrival and presence. ³ Like a city employee, the desk clerk looked busy for a moment. Then, he said the hotel had no rooms available at the moment. As soon as someone moved out and the vacant room was cleaned, the desk clerk pleasantly pronounced, Mr. Buchanan would be placed in it forthwith.

Mr. Buchanan threw what we call in the South, a “hissy.” A hissy fit is probably called a tantrum anywhere in civilization, but occurring in the South, Mr. Buchanan threw a hissy. The only concession offered by the desk clerk was that, if Mr. Buchanan needed a room immediately, the desk clerk said he would be happy to call nearby hotels to see whether any of them had a room available for immediate occupancy. Of course, that meant Mr. Buchanan would not be staying in the convention hotel, which would have been a serious loss of face, especially for one who had star value. Finally, Mr. Buchanan grudgingly retreated from the admissions desk and stalked over to our little foursome. The hissy fit continued, although not directed at us in any way. At the moment, Mr. Buchanan did not make good company. Keeping our amusement private, our foursome feigned sympathy and joined in the expressions of outrage at such undeserved treatment, especially as directed at one of his high standing.

At the height of the outrage, all of us saw Tipton R. Snavely walk in the hotel and gracefully stride to the registration desk, only to talk to the same desk clerk. Mr. Snavely was a true gentleman, a southern gentleman, beloved by all who knew him. Soft-spoken, benign, refined, cultured, Mr. Snavely had been the longtime chair of the economics department at the University of Virginia until recently. We watched as this wonderful man was told the same story as Mr. Buchanan had been told. Mr. Snavely had a hand in his pocket as he listened patiently and politely, and suddenly a twenty-dollar bill materialized in the hand as he withdrew it from his pocket and extended it discreetly to the desk clerk, whereupon the twenty-dollar bill disappeared into his pocket. As suddenly, the desk clerk checked Mr. Snavely into the hotel, gave him a key, and summoned a bellhop for immediate conveyance of his luggage to the room. Mr. Buchanan watched this drama unfold with mouth agape in stunned silence. Keeping our amusement private became almost impossible for the foursome.

After all, here was one of the authors of The Calculus of Consent (Buchanan and Tullock 1962), which changed public finance (and political science) forever, a book in which the acceptable role of vote trading, logrolling, and side payments was championed, and the last thing Mr. Buchanan thought about doing was to offer the desk clerk a little side payment, that is, a bribe. Although he did not have the benefit of such seminal vision, it was the first thing Mr. Snavely thought of trying. Evidently, Mr. Snavely had not read The Calculus of Consent. Like they say, it might be good in practice, but it’s no good in theory. I do not know about others in the foursome, but I still chuckle every time I recall the scene. ⁴ Speaking of scenes, if the world is a stage, where is the audience?

Serendipity: A Cocktail Party

I had my interview with Wilson Schmidt in Atlanta, and it went well. In an hour of déjà vu, I think we both were impressed anew, and I knew Wil Schmidt was the kind of man I liked and respected so much that I wanted to be a member of his faculty. I thought I had found the first venue for my career. Other interviews went well, but I did not find anything interesting as a first stop in an academic career. I also had fallback positions to consider. First, there was Harvard. And there was Iowa State University. A position in public finance was open there, and the head of the economics department, Karl A. Fox, had called Mr. Buchanan to inquire about the availability of one of his students. Mr. Buchanan had recommended me.

So, I was pleased with myself. I was a young academic with prospects. Interviews over, I sought out a cocktail party where one could have a free drink. I know there is no such thing as a free lunch, but I convinced myself that the same did not hold true for cocktails. Somewhere in the hotel, I passed a small room where one of the lowliest publishers was hosting a cocktail party. I ducked in and joined a handful of others. I was clearly the youngest in the room, and I found myself talking to a man who was arguably the oldest in the room. He introduced himself as Dean Hart, who was dean of the business school at the University of Florida (UF). He and I had a couple of glasses of mediocre red wine while talking. I could tell that he was interested in me, but my mind was elsewhere. Finally, he said he wanted me to meet a couple of people. As a courtesy, I could not say no. Straightaway, he and I strode down the hall and entered an elevator. I did not know at the time and could not have imagined at the time that this serendipitous meeting would change my life and career, not to mention result in a new journal.

Dean Hart took me to a hotel room where Clem Donovan, chair of the economics department at the UF, and Irv Goffman had been interviewing candidates. Dean Hart introduced me, told them how impressed he was, and recommended me to them. So, I had still another interview, although this one was very informal and probably inconsequential since they were not looking for a public finance economist at the time. However, Irv Goffman and I hit it off. On my way out, he said he wanted to talk to me later that evening. We made arrangements to meet at one of the hotel bars at a time certain.

Irving J. Goffman

Irv Goffman was known as “Dr. G” on the campus of the UF. He was a beloved teacher, and he was actively involved in student activities as well as a highly visible activist in social causes. His academic interests were centered on public finance. Even at that first meeting, I learned over a glass or two of wine that Irv was a Canadian citizen (he still had family in Toronto), his family name had been changed to Goffman when his family had arrived in Canada as émigrés (evidently, the immigration official took one look at the family’s eastern European name, said it was too hard—presumably too hard for real Canadians—and then arbitrarily made up the name of Goffman, which the official then entered on official papers), and his doctorate in economics was from Duke University. We became immediate friends, not mere acquaintances, but good friends.

Late at night, after too much wine, Irv and I finally left the hotel bar for a walk around the hotel. Our intimate conversation continued as we walked. At some point, I heard myself lamenting to Irv that public finance seemed underrepresented in America among scholarly journals in economics. Apart from the National Tax Journal, which was not a broad-based public finance journal, the vacuum was almost palpable. Somebody ought to do something about it, I said, having the benefit of ignorance about the journal business. I was clueless.

Irv was an activist in social issues (civil rights, anti-war, legalization of marijuana were but a few of his activist passions), and he jumped on this particular matter with characteristic activism. Suddenly, Irv Goffman had a plan, an active plan. He said he wanted to recruit me to the UF, and he wanted the two of us to start a journal in public finance. At the time, I thought it was the equivalent of someone saying, “Let’s get together sometime for lunch.” I responded accordingly. I told Irv I would like to do that, having no intention at the time of ever doing so. To Irv, however, it was like Elwood P. Dowd in the 1950 movie, Harvey. When Elwood P. Dowd asked someone to have lunch sometime and the person agreed, Elwood whipped out his pocket calendar and asked, “When?” Irv was serious, and his mind already was activating the plan in terms of “when.” I did not realize it at the time, but that one conversation was the beginning of the journal, Public Finance Quarterly, which would be launched in January 1973, more than six years after our late-night conversation.

The Iowa State Years: 1967–1971

Over the years, I have attended conferences and conventions with three objectives: to go home with a new idea, a new joke, and a new friend. I certainly left Atlanta in November 1966 with a new friend, Irv Goffman. A month or so later, I enplaned for the AEA meeting in San Francisco, which turned out unexpectedly eventful. First, I anticipated the interview with Richard Caves of Harvard with a reasonable fear. After all, it was Harvard, and I was just a hairy-legged country boy from Mississippi. The fear was self-imposed and wholly unnecessary. I expected to be grilled mercilessly and exposed as a know-nothing. On the contrary, the entire interview was Dick Caves telling me the department wanted one of Buchanan’s students, Buchanan had recommended me, and the job was mine on a three-year appointment at an annual salary of $8,500. The sixty-second interview stunned me into indecisiveness. I had to think about it, I told him, talk it over with Buchanan.

I could not find Mr. Buchanan. I did find Gordon Tullock. After telling Mr. Tullock about the Harvard offer, he advised against it. He told me Harvard would keep me three years and turn me out to pasture, and Harvard would overwork me and underpay me. He said the only reason to go there was to use the three-year position at Harvard as a stepping-stone to another position. Mr. Tullock also pointed out a lifelong lesson. He told me all it took to be happy and productive anywhere in academics was to have just one person to whom one could talk. He knew I had an interview with Iowa State University, and he encouraged me to consider it seriously. He pointed out that the economics department there was very strong, a top twenty department nationally. He told me to find out whether there was someone at Iowa State to whom I could talk and with whom I could work. If so, go to Iowa State instead of Harvard.

If not Harvard, however, I still thought of VPI and Wilson Schmidt. No sooner than the thought was formed in my mind, Mr. Tullock dropped a bombshell in my lap, which blew up any thoughts of going to VPI. As background, I knew Mr. Tullock was opposed academically at the University of Virginia by the dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, a political scientist named Robert Jennings Harris. Dean Harris did not support Mr. Tullock for tenure and promotion. When Mr. Buchanan threatened to leave the University of Virginia if Tullock was not tenured and promoted, this threat was regarded as too good to be true by Dean Harris, who wanted to break up the “monolithic” department, viz., the “Virginia School.” Mark Pauly, Tom Willett, and I made an appointment with Dean Harris, but despite our strong pleadings on Mr. Tullock’s behalf, extolling him as a scholar and teacher, particularly as a kind of artesian well constantly spewing forth novel ideas, we failed as all others had. Now, back to the bombshell. Mr. Tullock told me he and Mr. Buchanan were going to VPI. ⁵

I was devastated. My belief at the time was that, if I went to VPI and both Tullock and Buchanan were also at VPI, I always would be seen as a graduate student, a gofer for them. These feelings were my own, not theirs. Suddenly, I was truly on the market for a job. Harvard did not seem so promising, after all. The remaining interviews I had scheduled were now serious, not just for purposes of courtesy and respect. In particular, the Iowa State interview now had a lot riding on it.

The next day, I was interviewed by Charles W. Meyer of Iowa State University. The one salient aspect of the interview was that I sensed strongly that Charlie would be a person to whom I could talk, with whom I could work, and from whom I could learn. He told me I would be invited to campus for a visit. The only other school in which I developed any interest whatsoever was Arizona State University, but I was not convinced I would have anybody there to whom I could talk. James Cochran was nice enough, but the only magnet drawing me to Arizona State was family-related. My grandfather was a Texas cowboy who homesteaded in the Arizona Territory near Fort Bowie. My father was born there, out from Bowie, where a corral he and my grandfather built still stands in the middle of nowhere. When I left San Francisco, my heart and mind were settling on Iowa State and Charlie Meyer.

My campus visit to Ames was a good one, the weather was cold, but the hospitality was warm. I liked the faculty, especially Karl A. Fox, head of the department. I now knew with certainty that Charlie Meyer was a person to whom I could talk. Karl offered me a tenure-track position at an annual salary of $11,500. I negotiated hard for that $500, and I accepted the offer. In my third year at the University of Virginia, I finished my dissertation and completed the requirements for the doctorate, defending on the last day of April. ⁶ Afterward, I left for Ames and became a faculty member on May 1, 1967.

My years at Iowa State were good ones. Charlie Meyer turned out to be one of my best friends and a true mentor during my early years in academics. I was happy and productive during 1967–1971. I had papers published in Economic Inquiry (1968), American Economic Review (1968), Southern Economic Journal (1969), History of Political Economy (1969), Social Science Quarterly (1969), Public Choice (1970, 1971), and a book, The New Economics and the Old Economists, published by Iowa State University Press (1971). ⁷ In my third year at Iowa State, I was tenured and promoted to associate professor.

Every year while I was on the faculty at Iowa State, I attended the SEA meeting and the AEA meeting. Every year, Irv Goffman and I got together at the meetings. Every year, he talked further about recruiting me to the UF and about the two of us starting a journal in public finance. By 1971, a new era had begun at UF. Robert F. Lanzillotti had become dean of the business school, replacing Dean Hart, and Irving Goffman was now chairman of the economics department, replacing Clem Donovan. ⁸

In November 1970, I had met Bob Lanzillotti at the SEA meeting. I had a nice dinner with him and Jan Kmenta, the econometrician. I liked Lanzillotti. Of course, Irv Goffman and I huddled, schemed, and connived about both my relocating to the UF and our starting a journal in public finance. Irv confided that he had returned only recently from Leningrad, the venue for the International Institute of Public Finance. He told me that he had discussed the idea for a broadly based journal in public finance with Richard Musgrave. Irv invited me to visit the UF campus for an interview, and he asked me to talk to everyone I knew in public finance across the country and around the world. Of course, he would do likewise. ⁹

After the AEA meeting in December, the soonest Irv could schedule a campus visit was January 1971. Driving from Ames to the airport in Des Moines, a drive that ordinarily took less than an hour, took almost three hours because of an ice storm that topped a snow storm. Even with chains, I fishtailed my way along I-35, my knuckles as white as leprosy, blending in perfectly with the topography outside. When I arrived in Jacksonville, Florida, and deplaned a couple of hours later, I broke out in a flop sweat in the heat and humidity. I think I made up my mind on the tarmac. I remember thinking, “No more snow on the Halloween pumpkin, no more frozen tundra for a lawn until the tornadoes come in the spring.”

The visit went well. Milton Kafoglis was there, and I thought he was someone to whom I could talk. In 1970, I had been able to place two Iowa State graduate students, Blaine Roberts and David Schulze, at UF. Both were there. Although neither was in public finance, I knew how bright they were and knew I could talk to them. John F. Morrall was there, and I thought he was someone to whom I could talk and with whom I possibly could work. And, of course, Irv Goffman was there. An offer was made. I accepted.

Accepting the offer to join the faculty at the UF was easy. The hard part was telling Charlie Meyer and Karl Fox that I would be leaving Iowa State. Both had mentored me over four years and had supported me in every way, providing wise and trusted counsel, guiding my career. Charlie and I were close friends. Yet, the lure of starting a journal attracted me. I was hooked as surely as a wide-mouthed bass on a spinner.

Birthing A Journal: The Florida Years: 1971–1981

From the beginning, Irv Goffman and I worked on the idea of a public finance journal. By “beginning,” I mean from the moment I accepted the offer to join the economics faculty at the UF. The way we worked together, I was the idea man and Irv was the action man. Through Jim Prescott, an urban economics specialist at Iowa State University, I discovered the list of Sage Publications and called Irv Goffman. He had talked to a few publishers already, but none of them was interested in publishing the journal. After I brought up Sage, Irv took immediate action. Later the same day of my telephone call from Ames, Irv called back and said he had talked to Connie Greaser, who was editorial director for journals at Sage. She was interested and wanted to follow up the conversation with more information. In particular, she wanted to see a prospectus.

Irv began a written correspondence and a telephone dialogue with Connie Greaser. We prepared a prospectus. I wrote it, mainly because I was the writer of our little twosome. ¹⁰ In addition, Irv talked to Sara Miller McCune, the publisher of Sage. After almost six months of conversation and deliberation, Irv and I were invited to visit Sage in Beverly Hills, California. In those days, Sage was small enough for us to deal with Sara Miller McCune herself. Sara was the founder, publisher, and chairwoman of the board of Sage. Presumably, we would be offered a contract to add our fledgling journal to the list of Sage.

The attraction to Sage was two-fold. First, Irv and I would not be required to find a way to finance the journal through membership of an organization or through readership by subscription. Irv also knew that the university would provide no financial support for any such journal. Sage would do everything from promoting the journal to copyediting accepted manuscripts and producing the journal itself. Irv and I would be asked only to put together an editorial board and make editorial decisions regarding papers to be published. Two, Sage already had a list of journals. As a publisher of scholarly journals, Sage wanted to expand its scope into economics. We had found a niche that Sage believed would be profitable and serve a scholarly purpose.

Sara Miller McCune offered Sage as publisher of the yet unnamed journal in public finance. She invited us to California to see Sage’s plant and to sign a contract. Irv and I booked tickets to Los Angeles as soon as possible. We went to the plant in Beverly Hills in July 1971. ¹¹ I remember the grand tour of facilities. Irv and I were impressed. Sage was a highly professional publisher. Finally, we sat in Sara Miller McCune’s office. She was accompanied by her husband, David F. McCune, and Connie Greaser. David’s presence stood out. Afterward, Irv and I could not remember seeing any other men at Sage. It seemed to be a business founded by a woman and staffed exclusively by women.

We really liked Sara. After much pleasant conversation, she finally pulled out a contract. A journal was about to be baptized. Indeed, at a particular point in the contractual discussion, she turned to us and practically said, “What name shall you give this child?” And, we replied in a liturgical way, “Public Finance Quarterly.” The child had a name. As I recall, I had come up with the name. It was simple and straightforward. The journal dealt with public finance, and it was on a quarterly production schedule. Public Finance Quarterly it was. I also wrote the scope for PFQ, which was published on the inside front cover. What had started as barroom talk in 1966 had become a reality in July 1971. We had a contract with Sage to start a journal in public finance. Irv and I laughed later, saying our experience must have been at least a little like being present for the signing of the Declaration of Independence or the U.S. Constitution. We called ourselves founding fathers. Now, all we had to do was turn the reality of a journal into a palpable product of credibility and integrity.

Irv and I were not exactly sober when we enplaned for our return trip to Gainesville. We were excited, and we talked excitedly about all the work to be done. We went to the next step in our strategic plan. ¹² Basically, we had to put together an editorial board, and we had to find enough acceptable papers to fill up the first issue of the journal and beyond. At the time, we had no idea how much work was involved in both undertakings. We were to find out in the next eighteen months. Both of us were extremely busy. Irv was chairman of the department. I taught on closed-circuit television. In addition to the 200 or so students in our television classroom in Bryan Hall, I had another thousand or so who would sit in classrooms equipped with two television monitors and watch by videotape throughout the day and into the evening. In addition, I had an active research agenda. I was active in the department, college, and university, not to mention the community, and I had a robust management consulting practice that kept me engaged with large corporations and government agencies. However, Irv and I always found time to nudge along our plan, staying on schedule to launch the Public Finance Quarterly in January 1973.

As the senior of our two-man team, Irv became editor of Public Finance Quarterly. I was the associate editor. Both Irv and I got on the telephone and talked to public finance economists around the world about their willingness to serve on the editorial board and about their knowledge of papers suitable for publication in our upstart journal. Slowly, at what seemed glacial time, and gradually, at what seemed the rate at which a few million microscopic organisms join together to form even a modest coral reef, the journal took form. The skeleton was fleshed out. We had an editorial board, and we had read, considered, and accepted enough papers to fill up not only the first issue but the first year of the journal. ¹³

For the next few years, PFQ was part of our routine lives. Irv handled all of the correspondence, and I mainly handled referee reports and guided decisions. In this sense, Irv was the communicator for the journal. However, the routine was overtaken by events in 1976, only three years into journal history. Irv was asked to take an undersecretary position with the US Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. He would be tasked to evaluate welfare policies. The only problem was that he needed to be a US citizen. So, he had to become an instant citizen. He also had to turn the journal over to his wife, Judy, as the communicator and to me as the one who dealt with referees and their reports and with authors and decisions regarding their submitted papers. After eighteen months, Irv returned to the UF where he remained until 1978. At that time, he left academics to start up a consulting firm in South Florida. His wife, Judy, remained in Gainesville, and she continued to handle all correspondence. In effect, she had been the managing editor for PFQ since Irv left for Washington. The arrangement continued.

In 1981, the Sage contract with Irv as editor of the journal expired. ¹⁴ In consultation with the editorial board, Sage asked me to become editor. After deliberation, I decided I could not handle everything on my own. I asked J. Gregory Ballentine, who was a truly exceptional departmental faculty member and public finance economist, whether he would be willing to be coeditor. He agreed, and Sage concurred. I signed a contract as editor with the understanding that Greg Ballentine would be coeditor. In this way, I became editor in 1981. At the time, I thought I would serve three years and then let someone else be editor. More than twenty years later, I was still editor.

Odd events started almost immediately. Both Greg Ballentine and I went to Washington. The problem was that Greg went to Washington, DC, and I went to Bellingham, Washington.

From Editor with a Coeditor to Just Editor

Almost immediately after agreeing to serve as coeditor, Greg Ballentine was beckoned to Washington, DC. He was tapped as deputy assistant secretary for tax policy at the US Treasury. Treasury officials wanted him in time to mark up the tax cut bill of 1981. Apart from the uncertainty about his help with the journal, the problem was the uncertainty about his final approval by the White House. Greg was packed and ready to go, but each day brought another day of delay. Greg kept hearing the same day after day. What he heard over and over was that the appointment was being held up in the White House. Finally, Greg asked whether I could call my lifelong friend, Trent Lott, who was House Whip at the time. Trent and I had gone through school together in Pascagoula, Mississippi. He was president of my graduating class of 1959 at Pascagoula High School. He and I had kept in touch over the years, and he and I talked frequently by telephone and saw each other from time to time. ¹⁵

I placed a telephone call to Trent. Late that afternoon, Trent returned the call. I explained the situation regarding Greg Ballentine. I finished by telling him that my understanding was that his appointment was being held up in the White House.

Trent immediately said, “I know. I’m the one holding it up.”

“Trent,” I said, “let me vouch for Greg. He’s a registered Democrat down here in Florida, but if you’re not registered as a Democrat, you don’t get to vote on anything that matters.”

“I don’t care whether he’s registered as a Democrat or a Republican. All I want to know is whether he’s a committed supply-side economist!”

“Trent, Greg is a ‘committed supply-side economist.”

“That’s all I wanted to know. Tell ‘im to pack his bags, and tell ‘im I said, ‘Welcome to Washington.’”

The Bellingham Years: 1981–1983

I went into the deaning business in 1981. Bob Lanzillotti had used me as a kind of fixer in the department and college. He encouraged me to be a business dean. I did not want a big university experience in which I would spend all of my time raising money. I thought, if I ever become a business dean, I want to continue to teach a course each semester, continue to write and publish, continue to do management consulting, and continue to edit the journal. ¹⁶ Lanzillotti had once been at Washington State University, and he strongly recommended me to Western Washington University (WWU) in Bellingham, Washington. Bellingham was a little above Seattle, a little below Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, right on the water with a spectacular view of the San Juan Islands, right below Mount Baker, an active volcano. Bellingham was and remains idyllic. ¹⁷ In addition, WWU was like a private school with applications greatly exceeding admissions. I visited campus, liked what I saw, and became a business dean who, among other things, edited a journal.

By now, Greg was in Washington, DC, and I also was in Washington, but three thousand or so miles away from Greg. Greg basically said he could referee an occasional paper, but he could not serve as coeditor. So, I became it. I was the sole editor of Public Finance Quarterly. The Bellingham years were good. The journal was growing in circulation and in reputation. I constantly used academic and administrative contacts to scout for opportunities. In 1981, not long after moving to Bellingham, I talked with Patric Hendershott, who had just moved from Purdue to Ohio State, about hosting a national housing conference, pulling together a coterie of housing specialists to discuss tax aspects in particular. He and I found funding from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research. The conference was held in September 1981 at Ohio State. ¹⁸ The highlight was attending the opening football game for Ohio State, pitted against Southern Methodist University, in which OSU prevailed, 14–7. Insofar as the journal was concerned, I first met Jim Alm at that conference. He and James Follain presented a paper, which was published as the lead article when proceedings were published as a special issue of the journal (Alm and Follain 1982). Little did either of us know that twenty-three years later, he would succeed me as editor of the journal.

In 1981, less than a year after I relocated as dean of the business school at WWU, I learned my father had terminal cancer. He and my mother lived in Jackson, Mississippi, thousands of miles from Bellingham. From the time I left home as a college student, I always made a point of seeing my parents at least once every quarter of the year. I had kept that commitment since living in Bellingham. Now, I wanted to be near my father during the last year or so of his life. Someone nominated me for dean of the business school at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, which is only a drive of two hours or so from Jackson. As much as I loved Bellingham, my priorities shifted. The most important factor in my life was to be nearer to my father and afterward to my mother and her care. So, once again, I relocated to another university, taking the journal with me. The move was worthwhile. I was able to be with my father when he passed away, literally dying in my arms. In addition, I was near my mother so that I could care for her over the next several years.

The journal was ever growing in circulation, revenue, and reputation during 1983 through 1989. By now, I was being hounded constantly by headhunters and others as a potential candidate for one administrative position or another. I turned down nominations, turned down headhunters, turned down offers as dean and as vice president for academic affairs. Then, I was strongly recruited by a headhunter for Heidrick and Struggles for the business school dean position at the University of New Orleans. I turned down the offer five times before being convinced by Jim Bob Moffitt to accept it. ¹⁹ Once again, the journal was on the move. I had been editor for eight years, and I had another fourteen years to go.

From Quarterly to Bimonthly: PFQ to PFR

The journal was making the transition well from one venue to another, from the UF to WWU to the University of South Alabama to the University of New Orleans. In addition, the journal was surviving the transition of its editor from faculty member to dean. As editor, I partitioned off the role from dean. At various times during any particular week, I blocked out time to read every manuscript submitted, to assign two referees for each manuscript worthy of consideration, to consider referee reports, to recommend revisions to authors, and to make editorial decisions. The mail traffic was extraordinary, and I spent an inordinate amount of time dictating letters that were transcribed by an editorial assistant, in every case the secretary or administrative assistant to the dean. After Al Gore invented the Internet, I cut out the dictation and transcription and began to do almost all of the editorial correspondence by e-mail. The Internet also became a valued device for keeping track of academic gypsies and their latest addresses.

The journal was doing well, improving in every dimension. The quality of papers was elevated, and the reputation of the journal also was heightened. Sage was so pleased with Public Finance Quarterly that bimonthly publication was proposed. I consulted with the Editorial Board, and no one could think of any good reasons or bad reasons for changing from quarterly to bimonthly publication. Absent any objections, I acquiesced in the proposal. Foolishly, I thought bimonthly publication would be no more onerous than quarterly publication. Beforehand, I thought the pizza would be sliced into six slices rather than four. I was wrong. Deadlines came due faster than before, and turnaround of manuscripts as well as corresponding editorial decisions had to be foreshortened. The transition was particularly difficult. I felt like I was chasing something going faster than I was. I also felt like an old meanie, malicious, and petty, as I virtually hounded referees for reports and recommendations.

Once the decision was made to change from quarterly to bimonthly publication, the plan was to begin with the January 1997 issue. Then, Sage informed me of catch-23. I was told by Sage that postal regulations proscribed calling a bimonthly publication a “quarterly.” Accordingly, I was asked to rename the journal. Again, I consulted with most of the Editorial Board. Other than grumbling about the necessity of a name change, no one had any ideas. In a pique, I thought about suggesting Public Finance Bimonthly. However, the adult in me prevailed. I called Sage and suggested Public Finance Review. Sage liked it. In this way, PFQ became PFR. As planned, Public Finance Review was launched as Volume 25, No. 1, January 1997.