Dear REPE Reader,

Welcome to REPE issue No. 2-2022, the 8th issue!

This is REPE’s second “regular” issue (after issue 2–2021), compiled from independently submitted individual papers, neither invited nor part of a special issue. It is quite a success for a new scholarly journal in its third year to be able to draw upon such independent papers. A journal not ranked and with no official impact factor yet is still not an outlet for papers of young and early-career scholars, who need publications in highly cited journals. But mid-career and senior scholars are already targeting REPE indeed.

And Springer’s annual report for 2021 showed considerable jumps in the general interest in REPE in terms of site visits and paper downloads. But much more citations are needed!

While REPE is in good shape in terms of the SIs that we had and that are in the pipeline to come out later this year and in 2023 and 2024, we still are in need to build a regular backlog of independent papers, not the least in order to compile “thematically coherent” issues from it. A regular backlog should have a reach of one to two issues, which we still do not have. So Please consider REPE for your research paper or conference presentation!

Nevertheless, the present issue is luckily somewhat coherent, with some “inner logic”: We have papers on innovation (V. Robert) and development (J. Rama, thanks to J.B. Hall for the early initiative); we have two macro/finance papers with country studies on Ireland (R. Woodgate) and Belgium (T. Duterme).

On top, we are glad to present the first symposium in REPE, a three-paper section with more country studies on aspects of stratification economics. The editors of the forthcoming special issue on stratification economics (issue 3–2022, forthcoming around November) have “sourced out” these three papers in a “forward linkage” to this issue, on cases in India (N. Dhingra), Argentina (M. Féliz), and Brazil (P. Fandino).

My final greetings for now include the usual motto: submit to, read, download from, and cite REPE. And first of all, enjoy reading or browsing the present issue!

Wolfram Elsner.

EiC, REPE.