Submitting your manuscript

The Journal of Monetary Economics welcomes the submission of manuscripts in all areas of macroeconomics. To ensure the prompt processing of your manuscript, please follow these guidelines when submitting a new manuscript:

1. Submission of a paper will be held to imply that it contains original unpublished work and is not being submitted for publication elsewhere. They must be submitted online using the EM Editorial System.

2. There is a standard submission fee of US$350 for all manuscripts submitted for publication. The submission fee for PhD students is $200. Submission fees are not required for revised manuscripts.

3. A portion of the manuscripts is directly returned to the corresponding author after a brief review by the editor. In this case, one half of the submission fee is refunded. (This takes up to three months.)

Decision categories

The JME's policy is to minimize the length of time that an author faces to get an ultimate decision on his/her manuscript. The number of resubmissions is only very rarely above two, and a high bar is set on the first round so that open ended-requests for a revision are avoided. The decision after the first revision is "up or out". 

The editors classify their decisions on manuscripts into six decision categories:

• Desk Reject - Based on the editor's initial review, without consulting referees, it is unlikely that the manuscript would eventually be published in the JME.

• Reject - Authors are advised to submit revisions to another journal. The JME has a strict policy of only asking for a resubmission if there is at least a 50% chance that the manuscript is ultimately published, so that authors are saved from risky and lengthy multiple rounds of revision. 

• Revise and Resubmit - The manuscript shows promise, but major revisions are necessary for it to be published. Revised manuscripts must be accompanied by letters to the editors and reviewers of the paper addressing all of their concerns.

• Accepted subject to major revisions - Publication of the manuscript is anticipated but not guaranteed, as long as authors revise the manuscript to the editor's satisfaction in a timely manner. Authors must format the manuscript following the JME style requirements for the next round, while they were encouraged to do so in earlier rounds. 

• Accepted subject to minor revisions - The manuscript is basically acceptable, but there are small revisions that must be made, often editorial and stylistic.

• Accept - The manuscript should be prepared for publication with all source files included in the submission. Upon acceptance of an article, author(s) will be asked to transfer copyright of the article to the publisher.

Submitting a revised manuscript

At the JME, the first revision is a critical one, since second round submissions must be either rejected or accepted subject to a specified plan of further revisions. It is "up or out" for the resubmission of a manuscript after the first round. The author(s) should include the following items in their resubmission:

1. A brief cover letter to the editor that highlights the major elements of the revised manuscript and particularly stresses any major changes not requested by the editor and the referee on the prior round. The cover letter is also the appropriate place for the author(s) to express any concerns about the nature of the referee report. Within the EM system, the cover letter is entered into the system as a separate document: this assures confidentiality of the letter from the author to the editor.

2. A "Response to editor letter" noting specific page ranges in which the editor comments, questions, and requests are incorporated into the revision. This document will be available to the referee, as well as to the editor.

3. A "Response to referee comments" letter, which will be available to both the editor and the referee.

JME style requirements

You should consult the Guide to Authors page on Elsevier's website for detailed instructions. The editors of the JME also request you follow the instructions below. 

1. During the review and evaluation process, manuscripts should be submitted in double-spaced format using 12-point type and with 1 inch margins.

2. While we do not enforce a page number limit at the submission stage, accepted papers must not exceed 40 pages of text, references, and footnotes in the format listed in #1 above, and should not include more than 10 tables and figures (F+T<=10). Therefore it would be useful to limit the length of a new submission to the extent possible.   

3. Figures and tables should be placed in the text near where they are first referred to and not in the back of the paper. 

4. If your paper is published in the JME, you will have the option to include supplementary material on the Science Direct website. (JME does not publish appendices.) You may want to think about structuring your submission or resubmission to take advantage of this option, for example, by moving material of secondary importance to (not-for-publication) appendices so as to reduce the length of the submitted paper. Other supplementary material that can be included on the Science Direct website are those that enhance replication of and citations to research and may include: (i) appendices containing details of proofs, explanations of data sources, and details of computational algorithms, (ii) computer programs, (iii) data files, (iv) further explorations of topics studied in the published paper such as elaboration of theoretical models, robustness analysis of empirical specifications, or additional computational experiments.