Eric S. Maskin, 2007 Nobel Laureate in Economics, Adams University Professor at Harvard, and Co-President of SAGE said on the Third Annual Conference of Government and Economics that the Journal of Government and Economics will help fill a significant gap in current economic research which fails to adequately address the government’s role.

        He began by affirming the importance of government and economics as an independent field of study: that is, the government plays a critical role within advanced market economies, influencing the performance and prosperity of markets. He argued that compared to Adam Smith's time, government participation in GDP has increased from 5-20% to 60%, with significant changes in the role and status of economic activity. First, Professor Maskin showed that starting from the 19th century, government has contributed prominently to the tasks of guaranteeing social welfare, building infrastructure, maintaining public education, caring for the ecological environment, maintaining market regulation, providing public goods, protecting new industries, subsidizing scientific research, and curbing the inequitable distribution of social resources. Next, he used the historical cases of the US, Germany, Japan, and Korea in the 20th century as examples to demonstrate the importance of government support in the process of economic emergence. Furthermore, he spoke of the case of China during reform and opening up as another vivid example of a government taking the initiative to interact positively with the market through a number of measures such as supporting relevant enterprises, facilitating land conversion, and expanding and deepening financial markets. 

        Regarding the launch of the Journal of Government and Economics (JGE), Maskin pointed out that this new journal will help fill a significant gap in current economic research, which has failed to adequately address the government’s role, incentives, and behavior within a market economy under the existing frameworks of public economics, public choice theory, industrial organization theory, and political economy. Moving forward, JGE will be able to provide the relationship between government and economy with the attention and in-depth research that it deserves.