We are pleased to present the first issue of Planning and Markets, a wholly electronic journal. Although there are many journals that now publish in hard copy and electronic form, there are very few in the social sciences that are solely electronic. We strongly believe that this is the wave of the future.

Most of the articles in this issue lean towards a market-oriented perspective. This reflects the submissions hitherto. However, we would like to stress that we welcome papers from the planning and more interventionist perspective. It is no fun presenting one side of a debate. Perhaps prospective contributors have been put off by the well known opinions of the Editors. If so, let us reassure them that we are very open-minded and we look forward to receiving papers from alternative perspectives.

We have received numerous inquiries from scholars, perhaps many of them untenured, about the standards for publications in an electronic journal. They are identical to those of a hard-copy journal. All submissions should be unpublished. Each paper submitted is subject to external review by 2-3 outside referees and is also reviewed by each of the Editors. We understand that after approximately three issues we can submit the papers to the Social Science Citation Index and similar publications. Please be assured that this is a fully refereed journal, and that its standing will be determined by the papers that we publish in the future.

Although our first issue does not reflect this goal, our aim is to beat by far other journals in terms of manuscript turnaround. This is where we can gain a competitive edge. We will publish issues as fast as quality manuscripts dictate. The rest is up to you. If you have relevant research, please consider us in your future submissions.

Remember that our journal is free with no subscription rate. In this way, we hope to reach more readers than could be dreamt about by any conventional hard-copy journal. Electronic journals are not only about convenience but about spreading research results fast.

The Editors welcome letters with comments about the authors' contributions or with suggestions for improving our communicability. We intend that future issues will include a a Letters section.

Editors:

Peter Gordon pgordon@usc.edu School of Policy, Planning, and Development and Department of Economics University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-0626

James E. Moore II jmoore@usc.edu School of Policy, Planning and Development and Department of Civil Engineering University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-0626

Harry W. Richardson hrichard@usc.edu School of Policy, Planning, and Development and Department of Economics University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-0626

Technical Editor:

Chris Steins steins@usc.edu