No more double-blind refereeing process

From the American Economic Review's website:

Upon a joint recommendation of the editors of the American Economic Review and the four American Economic Journals, the Executive Committee has voted to drop the "double-blind" refereeing process for all journals of the American Economic Association. The change to "single-blind" refereeing will become effective on July 1, 2011. Easy access to search engines increasingly limits the effectiveness of the double-blind process in maintaining anonymity. Further, it increases the administrative cost of the journals and makes it harder for referees to identify an author's potential conflicts of interest arising, for example, from consulting. 

Moral of the story: when you can't apply a rule, drop it.