AEJ: Policy: Submission Guidelines

Please read our submission guidelines thoroughly before submitting a paper.


Submission Policy

Any paper submitted to the AEJ: Economic Policy should NOT be under consideration for publication at another journal. All submitted papers must also represent original work, and should fully reference and describe all prior work on the same subject and compare the submitted paper to that work.

In an effort to prevent plagiarism, the American Economic Association subscribes to CrossCheck to screen its submissions. CrossCheck has a "database of current and archival scholarly literature" and uses the Ithenticate tool to "compare authored work against the content in the database and highlight matching or similar text for further editorial review." Submission to AEA journals implies permission of the Association to check the submission electronically for plagiarism, using the CrossCheck system.

We are unable to review manuscripts that have been previously rejected by the AEJ: Economic Policy. The AEJ: Economic Policy reserves the right to reject papers without review. Papers rejected without review will receive a 50 percent refund of the submission fee.

All submissions, including revisions, must be accompanied by a Disclosure Statement. This is applicable even when the authors have no relevant interests to disclose. Authors will need to provide a separate Disclosure Statement for each coauthor at the time of submission. The statements will also need to disclose whether IRB approval was obtained for the project, and if not, state the reason(s). Submissions that do not include the statements will be considered incomplete and will not be reviewed. Please upload disclosure statements in Step 5 of the submission process for original submissions and Step 6 for revisions.

Source information for tables, figures, maps, photos, and other artwork should be mentioned in the captions. For material that is copyrighted, you must obtain a letter of permission from the copyright holder. In the US, Canada, EU countries, and Japan, copyright is automatically granted for photos to the owner(s) of the photos.

Policy on Papers Previously Submitted to the AER and AER: Insights

The American Economic Journals will consider papers previously reviewed by the American Economic Review and AER: Insights. Authors of manuscripts previously reviewed by these journals may request that the full correspondence files of the reviewers—including cover letters and reports—be shared with the editors of the AEJ to which the author is submitting (AEJ: Applied Economics, AEJ: Economic Policy, AEJ: Macroeconomics, or AEJ: Microeconomics), who will have the discretion to make a decision based on these reports or to request additional reports. 

If you wish to take advantage of this option answer YES to the question on the online submission form asking "Has your paper previously been submitted to the AER or AER: Insights, and if yes, would you like to request the materials from your review be forwarded to the AEJ editors?" If you DO NOT wish the AEJ editors to see the files associated with a paper previously submitted to the AER or AER: Insights, answer NO to the question. When such a request has been made, the AEJ staff will automatically share the previous reviewer reports and editor decision letter with the relevant AEJ editor. These documents will be shared automatically; you do not need to upload them with your submission.  In addition, the AEJ staff will contact each reviewer to obtain his or her permission to share the reviewer’s prior confidential cover letter to the AER or AERI editor with the AEJ handling editor.

In most cases, it is neither necessary nor recommended to change the manuscript before submitting to an AEJ. The process at the AEJ journal depends on whether the manuscript submitted is identical to the AER / AER: Insights manuscript, or has changed, as follows:

  • If the manuscript submitted to the AEJ journal is identical to the AER / AER: Insights manuscript, please submit a brief response letter to the editor (i.e., typically no more than 5 pages of text plus no more than 5 tables or figures) describing the main changes you would make to the paper in response to the main comments raised by the AER/AER: Insights reviewers if you were given the opportunity to revise the paper for the AEJ. A detailed response letter to each reviewer is not required. 
  • If the manuscript submitted to the AEJ has changed from the AER / AER: Insights manuscript, please submit a response letter to the editor describing the changes you have made to the AER / AER: Insights version. If the changes you made were in response to the AER / AER: Insights reviewers, please also include response letters to them. Although all decisions are left to the discretion of the handling coeditor, since these papers are different from the paper reviewed by the AER /AER: Insights reviewers, we expect that papers in this category are more likely to require additional review before a possible decision to proceed at the AEJ journal.

Please check the appropriate check-box as to whether the manuscript submitted is identical to the original AER / AER: Insights manuscript. In either case, please upload the original AER / AER: Insights manuscript and choose the file designation 'Misc. (for review).’ 

This FAQ page provides more information on the transfer option from AER / AER: Insights to AEJ.

Fees

Submission Fee

Individuals working in certain low- and middle-income countries are permitted lower fees.

  • AEA members: (Join the AEA)
    • High-income countries: $200
    • Middle-income countries: $100
    • Low-income countries: $0
  • Nonmembers:
    • High-income countries: $300
    • Middle-income countries: $200
    • Low-income countries: $0

Submission fees must be paid by credit card at the time of submission. If you have any questions, please contact the Editorial Office at aejinfo@aeapubs.org or 412-432-2300.

Papers rejected without review will be refunded 50 percent of the submission fee.

Publication Fee

For accepted papers originally submitted on or after February 1, 2024, there is a publication fee of $15 per typeset page. This fee will be assessed when page proofs are sent for author review.

Submission Instructions

Read guidelines thoroughly.  Papers will not be reviewed if they do not follow our submission guidelines.

Papers should be submitted electronically to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/aej-policy.  Upon receipt of the paper, a confirmation e-mail will be sent electronically.

  1. All manuscripts should be submitted in PDF format with 1.5 line spacing. We strongly recommend manuscripts not exceed 40 pages (50 pages for double-spaced manuscripts). The suggested length includes reference lists, figures, and tables. Excessively long submissions may be summarily rejected. Shorter papers (e.g. those conforming to the AER:Insights guidelines) are also welcomed.
  2. Please use 12-point Times New Roman or similar font. Margins should be 1.5 inches on the top, bottom, and sides.
  3. Your manuscript should include a title page with each author's name, institution, and contact information.
  4. Effective July 1, 2012: All submissions, including revisions, must be accompanied by a Disclosure Statement. This is applicable even when the authors have no relevant interests to disclose. Authors will need to provide a separate Disclosure Statement for each coauthor at the time of submission. The statements will also need to disclose whether IRB approval was obtained for the project, and if not, state the reason(s). Submissions that do not include the statements will be considered incomplete and will not be reviewed. Please upload disclosure statements in Step 5 of the submission process for original submissions and Step 6 for revisions.
  5. Include an abstract of 100 or fewer words.
  6. All submissions must comply with our Data and Code Availability Policy. Papers that use data that cannot be published can be exempted from the requirement to provide some or all data (if notifying the journal upon submission and in your cover letter), but must otherwise comply with the policy.
  7. Fully reference all prior work on the same subject and compare your paper to that work. In addition to referencing the work of other scholars, you should be certain to cite your own work when applicable.
  8. The American Economic Association operates a Registry for Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs). As of January 2018, registration in the RCT registry is mandatory for all applicable submissions. This applies to field experiments. Laboratory experiments do not need to be registered at this time.  You will be asked to provide your AEARCT identification number in the online submission form. Please cite your registration in the acknowledgement footnote in your paper using the following format: "This RCT was registered as AEARCT Identification Number (Author Last Name(s), Year of Registration)." Example: This RCT was registered as AEARCTR-0000005 (Zhang, 2017).

Please note:

  • We offer submitting authors the option of using our AEA templates. If these templates are used, they should be used in "review mode:"

  • If your paper is accepted for publication, all data used in your analysis should be clearly and precisely documented and should be made available on the journal’s website for purposes of replication. See Data and Code Availability Policy.

  • In tables, please report standard errors in parentheses but do not use *s to report significance levels.

  • We encourage you to use bibliographic software when preparing your reference list.  If you are using such software, please select “Chicago Manual Author-Date” style.
    Not all document types are covered in reference list software. We include helpful guidelines for several document types at our Sample References page.
  • View AEA style guidelines for published papers.

  • Authors may opt to publish joint papers in random order of coauthors using the symbol  between author names.