My rain man Frank raises a question on why journals do not adopt standard formatting/heading rules.

As an editor of Public Choice, I think I can give an answer, or rather several answers.

1. Different journals are different. Really. Reducing the transactions costs to authors is not really our goal. Why don't restaurants all have the same menus? True, it would reduce search costs. You could just walk into any restaurant and order. But any standard like this reduces opportunities for innovation. Vive la difference!

2. I assume that the transactions costs Frank S speaks of are the result of having a paper turned down at one journal, and then trying to decide where to send it next. Or, perhaps one has a generic format for papers, and always uses this BEFORE deciding where to send the paper. This is not THAT big a cost, and surely it doesn't take more than an hour or two to change the formatting. Given the silly things referees make authors do, this is the second order of smalls. "Reestimate everything using my pet MLE procedure, even though it clearly won't matter!" THOSE are the things that are a waste of time.

3. In my view, if there were one standard, the top journals could dominate even more than they do now. Public Choice accepts notes, short papers, and purely formal/theoretic pieces. We do this in part because few other journals do this, and it gives us a niche. But I also really believe it is important for authors, especially junior people, to have an outlet for odd or offbeat papers, ones that don't fit the AER/JPE/QJE Procrustean bed of standard formats.