I have been spending my quarantine absorbing research on COVID-19 — especially economic research — and, in the process, have written a book, Economics in the Age of COVID-19 that will be published at the end of the month by MIT Press.
Here is what is interesting about the process. Clearly, this has been quick. I have only been working on this a few weeks. But MIT Press decided it was an opportunity to experiment with a rapid publication process. So here is what is going to happen:
- Pre-print: right now, the entire book is available (in its final draft — not copy-edited form) on a platform developed by the MIT Media Lab called PubPub. If you go here you can read the entire book and also comment on it. It is called “open peer review.”
- Rapid eBook: that book is going through traditional peer review (it started about a week ago) and then copy-editing. It will then be released as an MIT Press electronic book and will be available on all platforms around the world. This publication will happen at the end of April — pre-orders should be up soon.
- Normal book (Updated Edition): following all of those comments and also the developments to come over the next couple of months, I will update the book and also expand it (a couple more chapters). That book will then be published as an Updated Edition in November (both print and eBook).
It will be interesting to see how this goes.
One feature to note is that an enormous number of the papers I cite in the book have been written in the last month by economists. This has been challenging to say the least. I am sure to have missed some things but when I learn of them I will be able to incorporate them in the updated edition.
So please go and visit the pre-print site. You can download individual chapters in any format. Comments are most welcome.
Digitopoly 