This is the real road block to ending the Dark Age.  "Top Journals" in econ usually means the top five.  Schools want professors to publish in them to boost their prestige.  Unfortunately, they're all run either by the same people or by people who agree with those people, so change only really happens from the inside.

That's not so big a problem at (say) U of Missouri-Kansas City, which is a pretty minor school within the state system.  (The flagship school is U of Missouri-Columbia.)  The administration isn't expecting them to be Harvard.

But it's a big problem at schools like Notre Dame (which fancies itself mentioned in the same breath as the Ivies), which basically had its econ department gutted over the lack of Top Fives.

I do think it's going to get better.  Certainly the blogosphere has helped open up the conversation.  And clowns like Reinhart and Rogoff have allowed departments like UMass-Amherst to gain exposure.  Getting a huge name like Jamie Galbraith to back you up helps as well (and certainly nobody can accuse the University of Texas-Austin of being an academic liteweight).

Be nice to America. Or we'll bring democracy to your country.