The American Economic Review first appeared in March 1911. This launch marked the culmination of decades of shifting publication formats by its parent organization, the American Economic Association.
Erzo FP Luttmer serves as the current editor-in-chief of the American Economic Review while holding a professorship at Dartmouth College. The operational headquarters for this monthly peer-reviewed academic journal sits firmly within Pittsburgh.
A significant policy shift occurred in 2004 when the journal began requiring authors to submit data and code sufficient to permit replication of their results. These materials are posted on the journal's website to allow other researchers to verify findings independently.
Until 2017, the May issue carried the title Papers and Proceedings and featured papers presented at the annual meeting held that January. Starting in 2018, papers from the annual meetings moved to a separate journal named AEA Papers and Proceedings to distinguish itself from the main Review.
In 2011, a committee led by Kenneth Arrow, Douglas Bernheim, Martin Feldstein, Daniel McFadden, James M. Poterba, and Robert Solow selected twenty articles as historically significant. Thirteen of the authors on this list later received the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.