Submission Guidelines for the Journal of Public Economic Theory

      The Journal of Public Economic Theory (JPET) publishes theoretical papers in all areas of public economics. JPET will consider survey articles notes, comments, exposita, and retrospectives as well as original research papers. In the interest of speeding the editorial process we strongly encourage electronic submissions. Please attach your cover letter along with your manuscript, both in PDF format,. and send to j.p.conley@vanderbilt.edu. Alternatively, you may send four copies of your manuscript to the editorial office at the following address:

Journal of Public Economic Theory
Department of Economics
Vanderbilt University
415 Calhoun Hall
Nashville, TN 37235

The Journal of Public Economic Theory will consider only original papers for publication. Submission of a manuscript is taken to imply that to the best of the author's knowledge, the manuscript is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that the same work has not been already been published, and that all of the authors as well as the institutions at which the work was carried out approve of its submission. While the manuscript is under editorial review, it is the responsibility of the authors to keep the Editors informed about submissions, publication plans, and publication of related research (or abstracts thereof) in other outlets, including letters journals, journals in other disciplines, collections of articles, and published dissertations. It is understood that submission of the paper for publication has been approved by all of the authors and by the institution where the work was carried out.
       Articles and any other materials published in the Journal of Public Economic Theory represent the opinions of the author(s) and should not be construed to reflect the opinion of the Editorial Board or the Publisher of the journal.

Authors submitting a manuscript do so on the understanding that if it is accepted for publication, copyright in the article, including the right to reproduce the article in all forms and media shall be assigned exclusively to the Publisher. The Publisher will not refuse any reasonable request by the author for permission to reproduce any of his or her contributions to the journal.

First submissions

Manuscripts must be in English and the main text should be double-spaced and printed on only one side. Footnotes and references may be single-spaced. For a first submission via hardcopy, any reasonable typed or computer-printed format meeting these requirements is acceptable. For electronic submission, the journal requires that manuscripts be converted to PDF format.

General formatting conventions

Style: In general, authors should be guided by A Manual for Authors published in 1962 (and revised in 1980) by the American Mathematical Society, P.O. Box 6248, Providence, RI 02904.

Equations: All equations should be typewritten and the numbers for displayed equations should be placed in parentheses at the right margin. References to equations should use the form "(3)".

Footnotes: Footnotes should be used sparingly and should be identified by superscripted Arabic numerals in order of their appearance.

Figures: Figures should be numbered consecutively with Arabic numerals. Type sizes below 4 points should not be used. While there are exceptions, generally titles will be incorporated into the caption and will appear outside and below the illustration. Currently, JPET provides an image area of 5 1/8 inches horizontally by 7 3/4 inches vertically. All of an illustration, including the caption, must fit within that area. However, space is at a premium and in many cases half-page size may be appropriate.

Tables: Number tables consecutively with Roman numerals in order of appearance in the text. Each table should be typed double-spaced on a separate page. A short descriptive caption should be typed directly above each table.

References: Cite references in the text by author's surname and date of publication. The text citations can be given in the form "Tiebout (1956) claims that…"or "This casts doubt on the existence of equilibrium (see also Aivazian et al. 1987, and Harrison and McKee 1980)." References should be listed in alphabetical order and in descending order of date. Type the references double-spaced throughout. Style and punctuate references according to the following examples.

ARROW, K. (1970) The Organization of Economic Activity: Issues Pertinent to the Choice of Market Versus Non-market Allocations, Public Expenditure and Policy Analysis by R.H. Havenman and J. Margolis, Eds., Markham: Chicago, 67-81

BENABOU, ROLAND (1994) Education, Income Distribution, and Growth: The Local Connection, NBER working paper number 4798

BERGLAS, E. (1976) Distribution of tastes and skills and the provision of local public goods, Journal of Public Economics 6, 409-423.

CARTWRIGHT, E. (2000) Firm formation, the theory of equalizing differences and payoff monotonicity, University of Warwick, Department of Economics MSc Dissertation.

MAS-COLELL, A and J. SILVESTRE (1991) A Note on Cost-Share Equilibrium and Owner-Consumers, Journal of Economic Theory 54, 204-14.

EDGEWORTH, F.Y. (1881) Mathematical Psychics, Kegan Paul: London.

Citations of unpublished work: Only articles and books that have been published, are in press or have been published and archived in a working paper (discussion paper or preprint) series, and MSc or PhD dissertation should be included in the references. Citation of working papers should include the number of the paper. Other unpublished results or personal communications may be cited in the text either in the body of the paper or as footnotes. The corresponding author should have the permission of the author of such unpublished work to before such citations are made. Any person cited as a source of personal communications has approved such citation. Written authorization may be required at the Editor's discretion.

Accepted Manuscripts

On acceptance, a final copy of the manuscript should be submitted that conforms to the following guidelines. The manuscript should be double-spaced and printed on only one side of letter size or A4 white paper. Pages should be numbered consecutively. Page 1 should contain the article, title, author(s) name(s) and complete affiliation(s), (name of institution, city, state, country and postal code, and email address, if available). At the bottom of page 1 place any footnotes to the title (indicated by superscript *, or other non-alphanumeric character). Page 2 should contain a proposed running head (abbreviated form of the title) of less than 40 characters including letters and spaces, the name and mailing address of the author to whom proofs should be sent, and an abstract of no more than 100 words. The abstract will appear at the beginning of the article in the journal; use the abstract format, which is required by the Journal of Economic Literature, including the appropriate classification number(s).

Final drafts may be submitted either physically or via email. We strongly prefer electronic submissions. We will need one version in PDF format for the typesetter to use a guide for how you wish your paper to appear in addition to an editable version (for example, Word, or TeX format). This speeds typesetting and reduces errors in rekeying. Please include both files in an email indicating this is a final draft. In you prefer to submit your final draft via hard copy, please include two printed copies and a disk with an editable version as described above.

Graphics

Graphs and photographs may be sent in either camera-ready black and white copy, film negatives, or in digital format. Better printing quality can be achieved for figures that incorporate screen tints by submitting them in a digital format. Illustrations that utilize fine screens (i.e., those with a pattern that is not really noticeable under normal viewing and appear more like an even tone), may not photograph well and should be sent in digital form. Xeroxed copy will not reproduce well at all. Providing EPS or TIFF files for artwork along with hard copy will ensure a quality reproduction of any questionable art originals.

Anyone submitting artwork in a digital format must also have a hardcopy produced locally before submitting the material. Often what is seen on a computer screen is not what is rendered by an image setter. For example, because a monitor has a coarse resolution, the finest line will be visible. But when the illustration is printed on an image setter the line will disappear due to the much higher resolution of that device. These copies should be labeled with the article title and figure number and submitted with the digital copy.

Material may be submitted in graphic formats common to major graphics packages such as CorelDraw, Adobe Illustrator, Freehand, or in more generic formats such as EPS, PICT, or TIFF.