Academic Researcher Wade Pfau, On Learning That His Breakthrough Research Showing That Long-Term Timing Always Works Would Be Published in Only a ‘Decent’ Journal: “There Is a Saying That Any Article Worth Reading Has To Be Rejected By a Journal At Least Once. And Quite a Few Articles That Led to Nobel Prizes in Economics Were First Rejected By a Journal.”

Yesterday’s blog entry reported on an e-mail that I sent to Academic Researcher Wade Blog on December 2, 2011. Wade responded the same day,

He said: “I agree with you that Bengen’s message was rather muddled.Though he usually expressed confidence in 4.5%, in one answer he seemed really unsure.  Also, he is out of stocks now, which violates the whole point of his research that 4% or whatever is supposed to be safe with a fixed asset allocation. It’s interesting.”

Regarding his breakthrough research showing that long-term timing always works, he said: ” I was discouraged when I first received the “desk reject” by the editors of the same journal that published the Fisher and Statman paper. I realized that I didn’t have a chance with one of the top journals. Applied Financial Economics is fine.  While it doesn’t have the same reputation as a top journal, it is a respected and credible peer-reviewed international journal in finance.  Maybe it is in the top 20-30 of finance journals.  So it’s not too low. ”

As a joke, Wade noted that: “If you are right about my paper, then maybe I could propel the journal upward :)”

He followed up with a tantalizing observation: “Well, there is a saying that any article worth reading has to be rejected by a journal at least once. And quite a few articles that led to Nobel Prizes in economics were first rejected by a journal.  Not that this is Nobel Prize stuff.  Probably, at least, Shiller is going to win a Nobel Prize in one of these upcoming years.”

The e-mail ended with some reflective comments: “As I was finishing up revising my article, I looked again at 2 pages of handwritten notes I made last December in the middle of the night when I was wide awake with jetlag after flying to Iowa for Christmas. I hadn’t looked at those since maybe February, and its a nice memory about how the whole research plan came out all at once.  But then there were twists, such as safe savings rates, which came out of this rather serendipitiously.  The last year has been a wild ride with this stuff. Hopefully 2012 will provide more positive developments.”