Editorial-Policies

Editorial Policies

1. Guidelines for Manuscript Submission

The International Journal of Economic Studies publishes high-quality research and scholarly manuscripts of international relevance. We are committed to diversity and inclusion in academic publishing and encourage submissions from authors representing diverse countries, backgrounds, and perspectives.

2. Pre-Submission: Helping Readers Find Your Article

Before submitting your manuscript, it is essential to carefully review the title, keywords, and abstract. These elements play a crucial role in ensuring that readers can discover your article online through search engines such as Google.

Authors should therefore carefully select the article title and prepare a precise and informative abstract. The more accurately the abstract reflects the content of the manuscript, the greater the potential for the article to be discovered across various academic search platforms.

Keywords should also be selected carefully. Authors should provide no more than five keywords, and each keyword should accurately reflect the subject and content of the manuscript.

All authors' full names, institutional affiliations, countries, and professional email addresses should be provided accurately in order to enhance article visibility and facilitate proper indexing and cross-referencing, particularly in English-language academic databases.

3. Submitting Your Article

The journal has its own Editorial Board and specific instructions for authors. To submit your article, visit the journal's homepage, click on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines link, and submit your manuscript in accordance with the journal's publication requirements.

Please ensure that you read the journal's guidelines carefully and comply with all applicable requirements.

Questions concerning the submission process should be directed to the journal's Editorial Board. Relevant contact details are available in the journal's submission guidelines, and additional information can be found on the journal's website.

The journal follows established standards of publication ethics and applies ethical guidelines designed to ensure best practices in scholarly publishing. Authors are expected to respect and comply with these standards.

4. Editorial Policies

A. Peer Review Policy

  • Authors should consult the submission guidelines of the journal before submitting their manuscripts.

  • The journal does not permit authors to use or recommend suggested reviewers at any stage of the submission or peer-review process, whether through the online submission system or any other means of communication.

  • Reviewers must be experts in their respective fields and capable of providing an objective assessment of the manuscript. The journal does not appoint reviewers in the following circumstances:

    • The reviewer is affiliated with the same institution as any of the co-authors.

    • The reviewer is affiliated with the funding organization supporting the research.

    • The reviewer has been recommended by the author.

    • The reviewer provides only a personal email address, such as Gmail, Yahoo, or Hotmail, and no institutional email address can be identified after a basic search using the reviewer's name, department, and institution.

  • Journal editors are not obligated to invite any reviewers recommended or opposed by the authors to evaluate a manuscript.

  • Reviewers must adhere to research and publication ethics and evaluate submitted manuscripts objectively and impartially according to recognized academic standards.

  • Manuscripts are reviewed by specialists whose expertise corresponds to the subject of the submitted article.

  • Reviewers are expected to complete their evaluations within the time period agreed upon with the journal's Editorial Board.

  • Reviewers must provide their academic credentials, including academic degree, institutional affiliation, and country.

  • Reviewers must notify the Editorial Board of any potential conflict of interest upon receiving a manuscript and before beginning the review process.

  • Reviewers must maintain the confidentiality of manuscripts throughout the peer-review process.

  • The journal adopts a Double-Blind Peer Review model.

B. Editorial Standards

  • Manuscripts are accepted or rejected solely on the basis of their scientific merit, originality, significance, rigor, and contribution to scholarly knowledge, without discrimination or bias.

  • Only manuscripts that fall within the journal's research scope and areas of interest are considered.

  • Any unethical conduct identified in manuscripts submitted for publication will be reported and addressed appropriately.

  • Editors coordinate with reviewers and communicate with them regularly to ensure that manuscripts are evaluated accurately and efficiently, while maintaining strict confidentiality and protecting the identities of both reviewers and authors from all unauthorized parties.

  • Compliance with the journal's editorial policies and publication procedures is essential to maintaining the journal's credibility and the quality of its published research.

  • Submitted manuscripts are screened using plagiarism-detection software, and authors are required to comply with the journal's acceptable similarity requirements.

C. Publisher Standards

  • The publisher must adhere to rigorous ethical standards in scholarly publishing in order to safeguard the journal's reputation and credibility.

  • The publisher provides the journal with the necessary support for its development, advancement, and continued operation, while protecting legally recognized publishing rights.

  • The publisher must take appropriate and firm action to prevent the publication of articles or materials that violate internationally recognized standards of publication ethics.

D. Authorship

  • The list of authors must include all individuals who have a legitimate claim to authorship.

  • The corresponding author must agree to take responsibility for all aspects of the work and ensure that questions relating to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

  • All authors must meet the authorship requirements outlined above. Each author must have contributed sufficiently to the work to assume appropriate responsibility for relevant portions of the content.

  • When a large, multicenter group conducts the research, the group must identify the individuals who accept direct responsibility for the manuscript. These individuals must fully meet the criteria for authorship.

  • For manuscripts submitted by multiple authors, all individuals who have made substantial contributions to the article must be listed as authors. Primary authorship, the order of authorship, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. As a general principle, a student should be listed as the primary author of a multi-authored publication that is substantially derived from the student's thesis or dissertation.

E. Corresponding Author

The corresponding author is the individual who assumes primary responsibility for communication with the journal throughout the manuscript submission, peer-review, and publication processes.

The corresponding author is generally responsible for ensuring that all administrative requirements of the journal are fulfilled, including providing accurate authorship information, ethics committee approval where applicable, trial registration or field-study documentation where required, and the proper completion of conflict-of-interest forms and declarations. These responsibilities may be delegated to one or more co-authors.

The corresponding author is the person who signs the publication agreement on behalf of all authors and whose contact details are included in the article.

The corresponding author should remain available after publication to respond to questions or criticisms concerning the work and to cooperate with any requests from the journal for additional data or information if questions arise regarding the article after publication.

F. Peer Review and Scientific Evaluation Policy (Double-Blind Review Statement)

The International Journal of Economic Studies is committed to applying a Double-Blind Peer Review system to ensure quality, objectivity, and academic integrity in all articles published in the journal.

Under this system, the identities of authors remain completely concealed from reviewers throughout the evaluation process.

The main stages of the journal's peer-review process are as follows:

Initial Screening:
Every manuscript submitted to the journal undergoes an initial screening by the Editorial Board to determine whether it falls within the journal's scope and areas of interest and meets the journal's formal and substantive publication requirements. Manuscripts are also subjected to a plagiarism and similarity check.

Anonymization and Manuscript Assignment:
Once the submitted manuscript passes the initial editorial screening, all identifying information about the authors—including names, institutional affiliations, and countries—is removed from the review version.

Authors submit separate files: one containing the authors' information, including names, email addresses, institutional affiliations, and countries, and another containing the complete manuscript without any identifying information.

The anonymized manuscript is then sent to at least two qualified reviewers who specialize in the subject area of the manuscript. Relevant subject-matter expertise is an essential requirement for the evaluation of any manuscript.

Evaluation Criteria:
Reviewers evaluate manuscripts based on their originality, objectivity, scientific contribution, methodological rigor, and overall academic quality.

Each reviewer is required to provide a detailed evaluation report containing one of the following recommendations:

  • Accept the manuscript for publication without revisions.

  • Accept the manuscript subject to minor revisions.

  • Reconsider the manuscript after major revisions.

  • Reject the manuscript.

Final Decision:
After reviewing the reports submitted by the reviewers, the Editor-in-Chief makes the final editorial decision and communicates it to the author.

If the reviewers reach substantially different recommendations, such as acceptance and rejection, the journal may appoint a third reviewer to assist in resolving the disagreement.

Prevention of Conflicts of Interest:
The journal is committed to maintaining the independence of the evaluation process by preventing conflicts of interest. Reviewers are excluded when they are affiliated with the same institution as an author or have collaborated with an author on a research project, thereby supporting an objective and unbiased evaluation process.

5. Publication Ethics

The International Journal of Economic Studies is committed to maintaining the integrity of scholarly publishing.

The journal encourages authors to consult and follow internationally recognized standards for authors established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

6. Contributor Publishing Agreement

Open Access and Licensing Policy

As an Open Access journal, the International Journal of Economic Studies publishes its content under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which provides the following permissions:

You are free to:

Share: Copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.

Adapt: Remix, transform, and build upon the material for non-commercial purposes.

Under the following terms:

Attribution: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate whether changes were made.

NonCommercial: You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

No Additional Restrictions: You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Copyright and Intellectual Property Rights

The journal permits authors to retain full copyright and intellectual property rights to their work without restriction. Copyright in published articles remains with the authors, as indicated in the metadata pages of individual articles.

By submitting an article for review, the author(s) confirm that the submitted manuscript has not been previously published, whether as a journal article, thesis, dissertation, or through any other publication medium, and is not under consideration for publication by another journal.

The editors reserve the right to reject any submitted manuscript if it is determined that the work is not original.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).

Copyright and Self-Archiving Policy

The International Journal of Economic Studies operates under an Open Access Policy. Authors retain full copyright and publishing rights to their works without restriction.

Authors are permitted and encouraged to deposit and self-archive all versions of their articles—including the submitted version (Preprint), accepted manuscript after peer review (Postprint), and final published version—in institutional and university repositories, subject-specific repositories, or personal websites immediately upon publication, without any embargo period or time restrictions.

7. Open Access Publishing

The journal provides Open Access publication for submitted and accepted manuscripts in accordance with its Open Access policy.

8. Preparing Your Manuscript

The journal uses a Double-Blind Peer Review process. Authors are required to submit a fully anonymized manuscript together with a separate title page containing the authors' identifying information.

9. Formatting Your Article

The submitted manuscript must be original and must not have been submitted for publication elsewhere. The author must provide a declaration confirming this and must not submit the manuscript to another publication venue until a final decision has been made by the journal.

The author is responsible for disclosing any potential conflict of interest arising from or relating to the submitted manuscript.

Authors must follow recognized academic standards in the preparation and writing of research, particularly with regard to identifying sources, properly documenting quotations, maintaining academic integrity, and accurately citing references and sources.

If plagiarism or any serious error is confirmed, the article may be withdrawn from the journal's website. Any affected party may notify the journal of suspected misconduct or serious errors.

The funding organization supporting the research, if any, must be identified at the time of manuscript submission.

The manuscript must be free from spelling, grammatical, linguistic, and typographical errors.

For empirical studies, authors should follow established research methodology, including presentation of the research problem, methodological procedures, research design, sample, research instruments, statistical methods, and presentation and discussion of findings.

The journal adopts the American Psychological Association (APA) referencing style, and the reference list must be formatted accordingly.

When formatting references, authors should ensure that they follow the journal's required referencing style and include all references and sources cited within the manuscript.

No specific Word template is required when submitting a manuscript. However, authors should ensure that heading levels are clearly differentiated and that all sections are clearly identified.

The journal welcomes the submission of LaTeX files.

10. Artwork Guidelines

Illustrations, photographs, diagrams, and charts should be provided in the highest possible quality and in an electronic format that enables the journal to reproduce and publish the article effectively.

Color: Please note that color images will be published in color online and in black and white in print or other formats, unless otherwise arranged. Authors should therefore ensure that all figures remain understandable and distinguishable when reproduced in black and white, for example through the use of distinctive patterns, line styles, or other visual indicators.

11. Submitting Your Manuscript

Please consult the journal's manuscript submission guidelines before submitting your article.

Authors must have an account in order to submit a manuscript for publication in the journal.

The file format of figures should be consistent with the formats used for other figures in the article.

A caption should be provided for each figure.

Do not use images subject to third-party copyright restrictions for graphical abstracts unless the necessary permissions have been obtained.

The final visual graphical abstract should be submitted with the accepted manuscript where applicable.

12. ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent, and fair peer-review process, the journal encourages the use of ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID).

ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from other researchers, including those who share the same name.

Through integration with key research workflows, such as manuscript and grant submission, ORCID supports automated links between researchers and their professional activities and helps ensure that their scholarly contributions are properly recognized.

We encourage all authors and co-authors to link their ORCID iDs to their accounts on our online peer-review and submission platforms.

The process takes only a few seconds: when prompted, click the ORCID link and sign in to your ORCID account. Our systems will then automatically update your information.

ORCID iDs may be collected during the manuscript submission process and subsequently become part of the metadata of accepted publications. The ORCID iD may be published with the article, allowing readers and other researchers to connect the publication with the author's ORCID profile and discover other scholarly works associated with that profile.

13. Acceptance and Publication

The assigned editor will keep the author informed about the progress of the manuscript throughout the production process.

Proofs will be sent in PDF format to the corresponding author and should be returned promptly.

The journal provides reviewers' reports to authors as part of the final editorial decision. The possible outcomes include:

  • A. Manuscript accepted without any changes.

  • B. Manuscript accepted subject to major revisions.

  • C. Manuscript accepted subject to minor revisions.

  • D. Manuscript rejected.

14. Article Access

Authors can access their published articles through the journal's website, where the final published version of the article is available.

15. Online First Publication

The journal provides an Online First service.

Online First allows fully reviewed and finalized articles that are awaiting assignment to a forthcoming issue to be published online before their inclusion in the final issue of the journal. This significantly reduces the time between manuscript acceptance and publication.

16. Digital Archiving and Long-Term Preservation Policy

To ensure permanent availability, continuous preservation, and reliable access to scholarly research, the International Journal of Economic Studies is committed to a long-term digital preservation policy.

The full text and metadata of articles published by the journal are preserved through international preservation systems, including CLOCKSS and LOCKSS, as well as the Internet Archive.

These preservation mechanisms are intended to ensure that the journal's digital archive remains secure and accessible to the global scholarly community, including in the event of an interruption to publication or a failure affecting the journal's primary servers.

The journal assigns permanent Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) to its published articles through registration with Crossref, supporting persistent scholarly referencing, discoverability, and citation tracking.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.63939/JSS

17. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Use Policy

We recognize the growing role of artificial intelligence in academic research and scholarly writing. AI tools can be valuable in helping researchers explore ideas, accelerate discovery, analyze results, improve language, and organize manuscripts more efficiently.

Generative AI tools can significantly enhance research workflows, but they do not replace human creativity, sound judgment, or critical thinking.

Our AI policy is intended to assist authors, reviewers, and editors in making informed and ethical decisions when using these technologies.

For Authors

AI as a Supporting Tool

We recognize that many authors now use AI tools to improve their writing. Tools that assist with grammar, style, clarity, proofreading, or structure—such as language-enhancement tools—are considered assistive AI tools.

The use of such tools does not ordinarily require formal disclosure. However, authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of their research.

Use of Generative AI

If an AI tool is used to generate any substantive part of the content—including drafting text, generating references, or producing images—this use must be explicitly disclosed in the submitted manuscript.

Authors should always cite original and verifiable sources rather than citing an AI tool itself, in order to maintain scholarly accuracy and objectivity.

If a substantial portion or most of a manuscript has been generated using AI, this must be disclosed during submission so that the Editorial Board can assess the implications of such use.

Authors who use AI in this manner must:

  • Clearly identify the AI tool or model used and explain its purpose.

  • Carefully verify all AI-generated content for factual accuracy, appropriate citations, and potential bias or errors.

  • Ensure that no plagiarism has occurred by comparing AI-generated content with the original sources.

  • Avoid fabricated citations or information and verify every substantive claim before submission.

  • AI tools such as ChatGPT must not be listed as authors.

The use of AI is not, in itself, grounds for automatic rejection. However, failure to disclose relevant AI use or irresponsible use of AI—such as submitting fabricated or plagiarized content—may result in rejection at any stage of the editorial process.

For Reviewers and Editors

The use of AI tools in editorial work raises concerns regarding confidentiality and intellectual property. Many AI systems process user inputs, and confidential manuscript content could potentially be retained, reused, or exposed in ways that are inconsistent with the confidentiality obligations of peer review.

AI Assistance for Reviewers

Reviewers may use AI tools to improve the clarity or structure of their review reports, provided that doing so does not compromise manuscript confidentiality.

Reviewers remain fully responsible for the accuracy, substance, originality, and integrity of their evaluations.

Reviewers must not upload confidential or unpublished manuscript content to AI systems where such use would compromise the confidentiality of the peer-review process.

For Editors

Editors are responsible for safeguarding the integrity of the journal's published content.

Editors may use AI tools to assist with limited administrative tasks, such as identifying potential reviewers, where appropriate and where confidentiality can be maintained.

However, editors should not use generative AI tools such as ChatGPT to independently write editorial decisions or generate summaries of unpublished manuscripts in a manner that compromises confidentiality or editorial responsibility.

Inappropriate or Undisclosed Use of AI

If a reviewer or editor suspects inappropriate or undisclosed use of AI in a manuscript or review, they should notify the Editorial Board.

The journal will investigate such concerns in accordance with the relevant Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) guidance and the journal's internal policies.

The journal seeks to advance scholarly publishing, contribute to the development of scientific knowledge, and continuously improve the quality of its publications. We welcome suggestions and recommendations that may contribute to the development of the journal and the improvement of the quality of the research it publishes.