All articles published in Economic Alternatives have undergone rigorous peer review, based on initial screening by the editors and refereeing by anonymous expert referees. 

Peer review of the Economic Alternatives in general follows four-stage procedure.

The first stage begins with submitting your article to a journal. At this first stage, the journal editor will decide if it’s suitable for the journal, asking questions such as:

A)      Has the author followed the journal’s guidelines?

B)      Is this the right journal for this article?

C)      Will the journal’s readers find it interesting and useful?

The editor might reject the article immediately, but otherwise it will move to the next stage, and into peer review.

Stage two: First round of peer review

The editor-in-chief finds and contacts between 2 and 5 researchers/academics who are experts in your field. It is important for authors to know that the reviewers are not from your country/university or institution. The main source of appropriate independent reviewers is the system ScholarOne. The reviewers will be asked to read your article, to asses it, and advise the editor-in-chief whether to publish your paper in that journal.

They would give an opinion whether:

A)      your work is original or new;

B)      your methodology is appropriate and described so that others could replicate what you’ve done;

C)      you’ve presented your results clearly and appropriately;

D)      your conclusions are reliable and significant;

E)      the work is of a high enough standard to be published in the journal.

You’ll then be given feedback about your article, telling you if any changes need to be made before it can be published. Please note the final editorial decision on a paper and the choice of who to invite to review is always at the editor’s discretion. If the paper does not maintain sufficiently high academic standards, it may be rejected at this point.

 Stage three: Revise and resubmit

You can then amend your article based on the reviewers’ comments, resubmitting it with any or all changes made.

If you decide you don’t want to accept all the reviewers’ comments, you can include a brief explanation of why you don’t believe they are applicable with your resubmitted article. The editor can then make an assessment, and include your explanation when the amended article is sent back to the reviewers.

Stage four: Accepted

If the paper finally meets the editorial and reviewers standards it is accepted for publication. And that’s it, you’ve made it through peer review.

Note: It might take 1-12 months between the acceptance and publication of the paper.