142 July 1988
Western Journal of Agricultural Economics
Programs for annual meetings. DeLoach de-
scribes responses from past presidents regard-
ing program development: “It is evident ...
that some of the results were better than oth-
ers.” (ʃ) Is a merger with the AAEA desir-
αWe.ZApparently not, for “there is as much rea-
son now for an organization that emphasizes
western agricultural problems as there was
when the WAEA was founded.” DeLoach,
however, expressed concern “that members of
WAEA who have attained national promi-
nence seldom attend western meetings unless
they are asked to present a major paper,” an
attitude which “detracts from one of the
WAEA’s purposes, i.e., to afford younger
members of the profession an opportunity to
associate with,.. . to listen to and to partici-
pate in discussions” with more nationally
prominent agricultural economists, (g) Change
of name. The regional and national association
names had been changed to the WAEA and
AAEA, respectively, (∕z) Isfurther institution-
alization desirable?
This issue, plus the concerns about Associ-
ation publication activity and the structure of
the annual meetings, remains unresolved and
accounts, in part, for the divergence of views
existent among the Association membership
(and among the members of this panel).
DeLoach commented (pp. 42-43):
The most striking characteristic of our WAEA is that it
has not become highly institutionalized. In some re-
spects, it operates as a club composed of professional
agricultural economists who meet once each year to dis-
cuss economic and social problems of current interest
to the members. The two formalized activities are the
programming of the various papers and discussions for
the annual meetings and the publication of the Pro-
ceedings. . ..
In contrast, the American Agricultural Economics As-
sociation has become highly institutionalized. By virtue
of its size and the business and editorial activities as-
sociated with the publication of the Journal of Agricul-
tural Economics and its annual Proceedings, there is an
ever increasing formalization of its structure and op-
erating methods. Much of this formalization is necessary
for the publication of the Journal and Proceedings... .
It appears that a crucial issue before the members of the
WAEA is whether their organization should embark on
a route of further professionalization and institution-
alization in order to issue a professional journal and
provide members with another publication outlet or
continue its informal structure and acknowledge that
many benefits, not otherwise obtainable, can come out
of the WAEA emphasis on western problems, profes-
sional improvement, and fraternization. As they now
operate, one might conclude that WAEA and AAEA
complement each other. The real danger seems to lie in
the possibility that any further institutionalization of
WAEA might lead to unnecessary duplication of AAEA
and higher membership cost to the professional agri-
cultural economists in the western states.
Assessment of the More Recent Past
Not much has changed in the past two decades.
The search for items of interest in more recent
minutes of the WAEA annual meetings reveals
little besides reports of increasing annual
membership dues. Either not much really hap-
pened, or the Association’s secretaries have
really briefed heated debates on hot issues, if
there were any. Some landmarks:
1971 Membership dues raised from $2 to $5 per year
1974 Membership expanded to include four western
Canadian provinces and six plains states
1977 Publication of the first issue of the WJAE
1978 Membership dues increased from $6 to $10 per
year
1983 Membership dues increased to $12.50
1984 Membership dues increased to $15
1985 The “western preference statement” for articles
was dropped from the WJAE
Last year, in 1986, the need for additional
revenues to support the Journal led the mem-
bership wisely to accept the idea that the price
elasticity of demand was more inelastic for
page charges than for annual membership dues.
The approved increase in page charges to $60
per page means that page charges for the WJAE
exceed those for the AJAE by 33%.
My tentative conclusion is that a reputable
journal can name its price to authors (or au-
thor’s institutions), for journal publications
continue to evolve from being a means to an
end—facilitating the transfer of useful knowl-
edge and information and serving as a collec-
tive good—to ends in themselves for less col-
lective and more individualistic reasons. I also
contend that our 1986 action regarding page
charges recognizes the common good nature
of our journal for the larger profession. The
transfer of the journal’s cost to author-users,
many of whom are nonwestemers in the largest
WEAE definition and who write on nonwest-
em topics, is an attempt to account more cor-
rectly for those external benefits to the profes-
sion. The 1985 decision sought also to free the
WJAE from any western stigma among the
larger community of agricultural economics
professionals.