Submission Fees and Categories

Regular Submissions

The fee for a regular submission or resubmission is €300, which is reduced to €250 if the submitting author is a member of the European Finance Association. (The membership application form is available at http://european-finance.org. Please note that proof of membership may be required. If you have any question, please contact the EFA Executive Secretary for further information by emailing [email protected]’.) The submission fee is fully refunded if the editorial decision is rendered after more than 100 days. The clock starts from the day that the submission is moved out of the holding tank and assigned to an Editor (which may be up to a couple of days after the submission is received). This is consistent with the link sent by Editorial Express that allows authors to check the status of the submission – this link counts the number of days from assignment to an Editor. 

If the paper is desk rejected without an external report, all but €100 of the fee is refunded. Referees are paid €150 plus €100 off a future submission for a report within four weeks.

Fast-Track Submissions

The fast track process guarantees an editorial decision within 14 days. Again, the clock starts from the day that the submission is moved out of the holding tank and assigned to an Editor (which may be up to a couple of days after the submission is received). This is consistent with the link sent by Editorial Express that allows authors to check the status of the submission – this link counts the number of days from assignment to an Editor. Please select ‘fast track’ as the submission category in Step 2 of the submission process.

The cost of an initial fast track submission is €900. The fast track resubmission fee is €500, although authors also have the option of switching to the regular track upon resubmission.

If the fast track decision deadline is not met, all but €300 of the submission fee (€250 for EFA members) is refunded, so that the net cost is the same as for a regular submission. If the paper is desk rejected without an external report, all but €100 of the fee is refunded. The submission fee is fully refunded if the editorial decision is rendered after more than 100 days.

If the most junior scholar completed their PhD less than four years ago and the paper is either returned for revision or accepted, we will refund the difference between the fast track fee (€900) and the regular submission fee (€250 for EFA members, €300 for non-members). The refund also applies to fast track resubmissions (see http://revfin.org/fast-track-refunds-to-junior-scholars/). Please email the Editorial Managers if you believe this policy applies.  

Please note that the RF may refuse fast track submissions if we have already received many such submissions within a short period. In such cases, the submission will be treated as a regular submission, and the difference in fee refunded.

Registered Reports

We recognize that collecting new data or doing research in an unexplored field can be particularly time-consuming, and that authors may be unwilling to do this given that a paper is only typically publishable if it finds significant results. We invite submissions of ‘registered reports’ (also as suggested by Harvey (2017)). These are detailed proposals, similar to the front-end of a regular paper providing economic motivation and methodology, but should be no longer than that. The report is assigned to an editor, who reviews it, perhaps in conjunction with other members of the Editorial Board. If the proposal is given the green light, this means that the editor considers the proposal interesting enough to publish, even if the results are insignificant. Again, the eventual paper will still have to be refereed, and there is no publication guarantee. However, the authors have the assurance that the Editor is sufficiently supportive of the topic that he/she will overrule any concerns on insignificant results, and that the same editor will handle the paper when eventually submitted.

We reiterate that Registered Reports are only applicable for research in a nascent field of research. The bar for a green light is high as it signals strong interest in the paper regardless of what the results end up being. 

The submission fee for a registered report is €100. The submission fee is refunded in full if the proposal is accepted. To submit a registered report, please use the same submission link as for manuscripts. When you reach Step 2, select “New Submission” as the submission type, and then on the second page of Step 2 select “Registered Report” as the submission category. Then complete the rest of the process as usual.

Accelerated Review Process

Harvey and Hirshleifer (2020) highlight how current norms are for journals to often follow the “Union Heuristic” – require authors to follow all referee suggestions and all referees to sign off for a paper to be published. They argue that this heuristic may lead to (a) innovative research not being published; (b) excessive paper length; (c) wasted author effort on analyses that add little value; and (d) burdens on referees, as papers are rejected at late rounds and then have to start the process again with new referees.

Our most important responsibility as a journal is not to blindly follow the Union Heuristic ourselves. When issuing R&Rs, we will do our best to scrutinize referee suggestions carefully, and advise authors if we believe the benefit is not worth the cost. We make mistakes, and sometimes may fail to give fully clear direction. Thus, we are open to authors asking us, within a round, if a particular analysis is essential.

In addition, we are trialling the following Accelerated Review Process (“ARP”) for papers that have been reviewed at other journals. This process will apply in the following two cases:

  1. A paper receives an R&R at another journal. The authors resubmit the paper but are rejected at a later round due to the “union heuristic” (e.g. one referee signs off but another does not, or there is a single referee who recommends rejection because the authors did not respond to every comment). Or, the paper may be rejected due to reasons unrelated to the “union heuristic” (e.g. a referee bringing up new concerns at the second round, which should have been raised at the first round).
  2. A paper receives an R&R at another journal. However, the referees request substantial revisions that the authors feel would worsen the paper or have little benefit. The “union heuristic” is explicitly applied, or nothing is said which implicitly means they have to address all comments.

In these cases, authors may use the ARP. To do so, the authors should follow the following steps:

  1. In Step 2 of the submission process, select “New Submission” as “Type of Submission” and “R&R At Other Journal” as “Category of Submission”
  2. Include all referee reports and decision letters from all rounds at the last journal.
  3. Include the paper, which they may choose to update since the last decision, e.g. to incorporate suggestions that they believe are value-adding.
  4. Include a cover letter explaining which suggestions they are willing to address, and which suggestions they do think they should not address, accompanied by explanations. In simple terms, the cover letter in Case 1 is “the appeal letter you wish you could write”; in Case 2 it is “the response document you wish you could write”.

The assigned Editor will review the document, potentially seeking advice from other members of the Editorial Board, but with no external referees. The Editor can issue one of three decisions:

  1. Accept as is
  2. Reject
  3. Revise and Resubmit

Under decision 3, the editor will explain which comments in the prior reports the authors should address, guided by the authors’ cover letter. In rare cases, the Editor may add additional suggestions but only if there is something crucial that the referees missed. The next round is up or out: the Editor will decide whether the authors have satisfactorily addressed the concerns, without external referees.

Additional details follow below:

  1. The ARP is valid for papers that received an R&R at the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Studies and Review of Financial Studies. It is only valid for the last journal the authors submitted to. For example, if the authors were rejected at a late round at Journal A, and then submit to Journal B and are rejected, they are not eligible for the ARP using the reports from Journal A. (Of course, if they receive an R&R for Journal B, they may use the ARP with the reports from Journal B).
  2. The standard submission fee of €300 is required. Since no referees are involved, we hope to reach a decision within two weeks. Accordingly, there is no “fast-track” option.
  3. Papers rejected from the ARP may still be submitted to the RF without prejudice. It would be treated as a regular submission and handled by a new Editor who will have no knowledge of the prior correspondence.
  4. Sometimes authors may be rejected at the first round due to the application of the Union Heuristic (e.g. split referees). During this trial period, we are not opening up the ARP to such submissions, only to those that have received R&Rs. Authors are welcome to submit such papers as regular submissions, and include the correspondence at prior journals. The Editor will send the paper out to referees, as with any regular submission, but may consider this correspondence in his/her decision.

References

Harvey, Campbell R. and David Hirshleifer (2020): “Up or Out: Resetting Norms for Peer Reviewed Publishing in the Social Sciences.”

Refunds

The Editorial Office aims to process all refunds during the calendar month following the month in which the editorial decision is given. For instance, if the editorial decision is made in January, the refund will usually be processed in February. Please note that this time frame is not guaranteed, and payments may occasionally be delayed.

Refunds are usually processed via PayPal, with funds automatically returned to your original payment account. On occasion, it may be necessary for the Editorial Managers to contact you to arrange a refund by another method.

If you paid your submission fee using credits on Editorial Express, your refund will take the form of credit being added to your account. If you submission fee was part-paid using credits on Editorial Express, and part-paid in cash, the amount you paid in cash will be first refunded, and the any residual refund amount due will be added to your Editorial Express account.

Please note that if an author wishes to withdraw a manuscript after it has been submitted, but before an external report has been requested, it will be treated the same as if it were desk rejected, and all but €100 of the fee will be refunded. If an author wishes to withdraw a paper after an external report has been requested, no refund will be given.

European Union authors and institutions

Authors based in the European Union must either add correct VAT information to their submission or confirm they are submitting their paper privately.

A VAT number should be provided in any instance that an author’s university or institution is meeting the cost of their submission, whether by paying the fee directly or through reimbursement. In this case, the contact details (address, postal code, city, country) provided during the submission should be for the university or institution.

If the author is meeting the cost of the submission themselves, they should indicate this by writing ‘private submission’ in the space given for VAT numbers. In this case, the contact details (address, postal code, city, country) provided during the submission should be the author’s personal billing address.

Please note that it is vital that this information is accurate, as without it we are unable to provide invoices that meet our regulatory requirements. Any author that fails to provide this information may have to pay additional costs before their manuscript is reviewed. This policy applies to both regular and fast track submissions and resubmissions.