Quote of the day: I have been increasingly moved to wonder whether my job is a job or a racket, whether economists...should cover their faces or burst into laughter when they met on the street. - Frank H. Knight In This Issue: Welcome to the May 2008 issue of Econ Journal Watch. EJW is a triannual peer-reviewed journal for scholarly commentary on academic economics. Our articles are organized into thematic Sections. Each Section can be accessed by clicking on the links running across the top of the page: Comments, Economics in Practice etc. Each Section contains articles in Adobe pdf format, which can be viewed individually. Or, click on the link at the bottom of this page to download and print the entire document as a single pdf file (134 pages). Table of Contents with links to articles (pdf) Comments Soviet Economic Decline Revisited: Brendan Beare catches a big mistake by William Easterly and Stanley Fischer in the World Bank Economic Review. Easterly and Fischer reply. The Diluted Economics of Casinos and Crime: Doug Walker rejoins the debate with Earl Grinols and David Mustard regarding their article in the Review of Economics and Statistics. Grinols and Mustard reply. Smoking "Externalities": David Henderson rejoins the debate with Benjamin Alamar and Stanton Glantz on smoking bans in restaurants. Alamar and Glantz reply. Investigating the Apparatus Why Few Women in Economics? Christina Jonung and Ann-Charlotte Ståhlberg show that women are under-represented in economics in five countries and discuss explanations. Commentaries are provided by Ann Mari May, Deirdre McCloskey, Catherine Hakim, John Johnson, and Garett Jones. Character Issues Honestly, Who Else Would Fund Such Research? Michael Marlow reflects on biases in smoking research. Download and Print Entire May 2008 Issue (134 pages, 1.8 MB)