We launched the New England Journal of Public Policy (NEJPP) in 1985 when Edmund Beard was director of the then-John W. McCormack Institute of Public Affairs. An Institute Senior Fellow at the time, I was founding editor and continued in that capacity until the last issue was published in 2007.

We remained closed over the last 6 years for all the usual reasons, which are encapsulated in one word: money, or rather lack thereof.

We now resume publication of the Journal in an online form, and invite you to scroll through different issues to get some idea of the breadth of our interests. Most of all, we invite you to read the forthcoming issues, give us feedback, and help us in the search for authors whose work you believe should receive consideration for publication.

We welcome you and hope you will enjoy the ten articles in this first issue, which are a compilation of some of the best we previously published. Due to time-sensitive developments, a few authors reviewed their earlier work and added a brief post-script. The republished contributions represent a diverse array of economic, public health, peace and justice, and public policy concerns, with our traditional fillip of literary reflection.