By name: jfqa-review-process description: Use when explaining how the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (JFQA) review process works — double-anonymous peer review, the seven-Managing-Editor structure, the $350 fee with $275 refund if not sent to a reviewer, and the under-9-percent acceptance reality. Use to set expectations for what happens after you submit and how decisions are made.
JFQA Review Process (jfqa-review-process)
Use this skill to understand what happens to a JFQA manuscript after submission, so you submit informed and read decision letters correctly.
Who decides
- JFQA has no single Editor-in-Chief. It is led by a team of seven Managing Editors (as of 2026): Hendrik Bessembinder, Ran Duchin, Thierry Foucault, Jarrad Harford, Kai Li, George Pennacchi, and Stephan Siegel, supported by advisory editors and 50+ associate editors.
- A Managing Editor is assigned per paper; that editor decides whether to desk-reject or send the paper to reviewer(s). (The specific handling editor is assigned per submission — 待核实 for any individual case.)
The review model
- Double-anonymous peer review (Cambridge Core terminology). Author-identifying information is removed and the manuscript PDF is sent blind to the reviewer(s). Anonymize accordingly (see jfqa-writing-style / jfqa-submission).
Fee and the desk-screen economics
- A $350 submission fee (credit card only) is charged up front. If the Managing Editor elects not to send the paper to a reviewer, $275 is refunded — so a desk reject still costs you $75 in handling. Budget for this.
Selectivity
- JFQA prints less than 9% of the more than 1,000 manuscripts submitted annually. Most papers do not clear review; a clean, well-identified, well-formatted submission is how you survive the first screen.
What to expect
- A desk decision (reject, or send to review), then — if reviewed — referee reports and an editor decision (reject / R&R / rarely accept). R&Rs are demanding; see jfqa-rebuttal.
Decision-letter decoding
| Letter outcome | Realistic meaning | Next move |
|---|---|---|
| Desk reject ($275 refunded) | failed the Managing Editor's fit/quality screen | diagnose which screen (scope, abstract, length, identification) before retargeting |
| Reject after review | the paper may return only if substantially modified — and the prior rejection must be disclosed in the cover letter | weigh a deep rebuild vs. another outlet; never quietly resubmit |
| R&R, major | a genuine path, with heavy identification/robustness asks | jfqa-rebuttal, full triage |
| Conditional accept | execute the remaining items precisely | finish edits, then build the Dataverse archive (jfqa-replication-and-data-policy) |
What the assigned Managing Editor screens first
- Field match: the seven-editor structure means your paper lands with an editor whose own research spans your subfield (microstructure, corporate, asset pricing, banking, institutions) — sloppiness in that subfield's standard methods is visible immediately.
- Hard-constraint compliance: the one-paragraph ≤ 100-word abstract, the prescribed formatting, a text-searchable PDF, and intact anonymization.
- Substance signals: a named source of identifying variation, economic magnitudes alongside t-statistics, and length proportionate to the contribution.
- The screening rubric itself is not published — confirm against the journal's current author guidelines rather than assuming any one factor dominates.
Timeline and fee posture
- Turnaround varies with the handling editor and reviewer availability; published averages go stale quickly, so plan conference cycles around an uncertain clock and resist querying the editorial office in the first weeks.
- Fee math compounds: each desk reject costs $75 plus calendar time, so two failed screens cost $150 and a semester. Spending an extra week on jfqa-topic-selection and jfqa-submission preflight is the cheap insurance.
- If reviewer reports conflict, the Managing Editor — not a vote count — decides; read the editor's own paragraph in the letter as the binding signal.
Four answers to have ready before the screen
Draft a one-sentence answer to each, because the manuscript will be read for exactly these:
- What variation identifies the headline estimate?
- What is the magnitude in finance units, and what is it scaled against?
- Which two or three nearest papers does this change, and how?
- Why is the paper exactly as long as it is?
If any answer takes more than one sentence, route back through the relevant jfqa-* skill before paying the fee.
Output format
【Editor】per-paper Managing Editor (7-person panel)
【Model】double-anonymous; blind to reviewers
【Fee math】$350 paid; $75 retained on desk reject
【Odds】<9% printed of 1,000+; expect attrition
【Next step】jfqa-submission (preflight) → jfqa-rebuttal (on R&R)