jfqa-review-process

Research

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.

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Source SKILL.md: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/blob/HEAD/Journal-of-Financial-and-Quantitative-Analysis-Skills/skills/jfqa-review-process/SKILL.md

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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)