As usual, the Cornell Economics Society had some statistics to report when it released the fall 2005 edition of its undergraduate journal, The Visible Hand.

But this was not the normal fare of stories about trends in baseball salaries, rising home prices, globalization and the economic impact of catastrophic events. Instead, the society noted significant growth of its own.

"The number of people working on The Visible Hand has gone from 20 when I first joined to about 60 now," said co-editor-in-chief Michael Tang '06, at a Dec. 1 reception held in Willard Straight Hall's International Room to launch the new issue.

The journal's staff of writers, editors and designers had given themselves more pages to fill -- 80 -- than ever before. And its business and marketing team had bumped circulation to 1,000 copies, a 50 percent increase, Tang said.

The Visible Hand -- the name refers to a term used by economist Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations" -- is one of the few undergraduate journals of its kind in the nation and is now in its 13th year of publication. The journal was recently redesigned to include more photographs and other graphics, beyond statistical charts and graphs.

The editorial content also is intended to appeal to more of a general-interest audience beyond a core readership of economics students, Tang said. The current issue also contains articles about professors' salaries and productivity, the aviation industry, and immigration and crime in Southern cities.

To generate more diverse coverage, the list of contributors is growing. The fall issue includes articles written by students in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) and in Applied Economics and Management (AEM), a program in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

"In previous years it was more crowded with economics students," said co-editor-in-chief Liza Lee, ILR '07. "One of my goals was to recruit more writers from ILR."

Lee said she hopes to initiate an article exchange between Cornell and other institutions, and she has been in contact with economics groups at Stanford and Carnegie-Mellon universities to exchange ideas for collaboration.

"We want to make connections and build bridges with other campuses -- to learn more about economics from others and hopefully have others learn from us," Lee said.

Copies of The Visible Hand are available at several campus and community locations. For more information, e-mail editor@thevisiblehand.org or visit http://www.thevisiblehand.org.