Information for Authors

Please note the journal now requires authors to complete their copyright licence to publish form online .

Unlike most other economics journals, the Oxford Review of Economic Policy is thematic: each issue deals with one particular topic, e.g. consumption, economies in transition, exchange rates, etc. This being the case, the editors tend to approach people in the appropriate field and ask them to write on a particular subject, rather than wait to see what is submitted. We are therefore very unlikely to accept unsolicited articles, but please see the note under Pipeline.

For further information, please contact Alison Gomm in the Production Office of the Oxford Review of Economic Policy: Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Park Central, 40-41 Park End Street, Oxford OX1 1JD. Email: [email protected]

Guidance on Style and Contents of Articles

The Oxford Review of Economic Policy is an economics journal written for a general readership of business people, government officials, graduate and undergraduate students, interested non-specialists as well as academics and practising economists. As far as possible, articles should therefore avoid technicalities in the form of either terminology, which will be unfamiliar to a general readership, or mathematical presentations. Where economic terminology is used, then it should be defined clearly and examples of its application given.

The use of mathematics need not be avoided entirely; it sometimes helps to clarify a verbal discussion. However, proofs of propositions should not be included. Authors who do employ mathematics in their articles should ensure that it is either a necessary component of their presentation or really does improve the clarity of the unfamiliar to much of the audience.

Articles should be written with an intelligent audience in mind, who will be able to grasp new ideas rapidly, but who may not be familiar with the existing academic literature. The coverage is an extensive discussion of ideas at the forefront of economic research. Thus, while articles should avoid technical exposition, at the same time they are definitely not journalistic in style. They should be able to provide the reader with a thorough understanding of economic developments. Academic economists who are specialists in other fields should find the articles informative; they should turn to the Oxford Review of Economic Policy as a way of keeping abreast of new ideas in a rapidly expanding discipline. Articles should be clear, but concise. Under no circumstances should they exceed 9,000 words, including diagrams, footnotes and tables. Articles which fail to meet this limitation may not be accepted.

2. Electronic formats

We ask all authors to submit their drafts by e-mail. The preferred software for typesetting is Microsoft Word. Any authors who cannot submit their articles as Word files should send them as PDF files. If there is any difficulty in submitting work in this way, or any queries regarding the software used, please contact our Production Office.

Any graphs or figures should, where possible, be produced using Excel. It is helpful to supply the spreadsheet data as well.

3. Style

All text should be typed, single-spaced. Paragraphs should not be indented.

Sections

1. Should be numbered consecutively in Roman numerals.
2. Section headings should be in capital letters, sub-headings in lower-case letters.
3. If possible, the first section should have the heading: I. INTRODUCTION.

Footnotes

Footnotes should be avoided as far as possible. They should only be included where they provide either an important qualification to or a clear illustration of statements in the text. They should not be used to elaborate on the main text or present related material. If footnotes are used, they should be kept short. They should be numbered consecutively and included at the end of the article after the references. Mathematical expositions should be avoided in footnotes.

Tables

1. Should be numbered consecutively 1, 2, 3.
2. Should have short titles.
3. Should not use vertical lines.

Figures

1. Should be numbered consecutively 1, 2, 3 and be referred to as Figure 1, etc., in both headings and the text.
2. Should have short titles.
3. Authors are requested to supply in advance (i.e. with the first draft of the article), the data from which their graphs and charts are constructed.

Figure accessibility and alt text

Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.  

Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs. 

Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article. 

Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text. 

Mathematics

1. Numbers between -1 and +1 must have 0 before the decimal point.
2. All equations should be numbered in a single sequence (1), (2), (3) on the right-hand side of the page.
3. Make sure that expressions are correctly aligned, especially fractions, '=', subscripts and superscripts.
4. The order of precedence of brackets is {[()]}, etc.
5. If matrix algebra is used, then please use capitals for matrices, lower-case letters for vectors and Greek lower case for scalors.
6. Use obliques where convenient in fractions.

References

1. In the text, references should be Jones (1985) or (Jones, 1985). The title and description of the article or book should be listed in references at the end, not in the main text or footnotes.
2. The list of references should be in alphabetical order of author's name and in chronological order for each author.
3. An example of how references are displayed follows:

REFERENCES
Ashley, W. J. (1904), The Adjustment of Wages , London, Longmans Green.
Beckerman, W., and Jenkinson, T. (1986), 'How Rigid are Real Wages Anyway?', in W. Beckerman (ed.), Wage Rigidity and Unemployment , London, Duckworth.
Beenstock, M., and Warburton, P. (1982), 'An Aggregative Model of the UK Labour Market', Oxford Economic Papers , 3 (2), 253-75.
Bruno, M., and Sachs, J. D. (1985), Economics of Worldwide Stagflation , Oxford, Blackwell.
Dicks Mireaux, L. A., and Shepherd, J. R. (1962), 'The Wages Structure and Some Implications for Incomes Policy', National Institute Economic Review , 22 (2), 38-44.

Abstracts

Authors are asked to provide an abstract of no more than 150 words which will be sent to the American Economic Association for use in its on-line bibliographic service in addition to being printed in the journal.

4. Refereeing

All articles submitted to the journal are refereed.

5. Author Self-Archiving/Public Access policy

For information about this journal's policy, please visit our Author Self-Archiving policy page.

6. Funding Information

Details of all funding sources for the work in question should be given in a separate section entitled 'Funding'. This should appear before the 'Acknowledgements' section.

The following rules should be followed:

In order to meet your funding requirements authors are required to name their funding sources in the manuscript. For further information on this process or to find out more about CHORUS, visit the CHORUS initiative.

• The sentence should begin: ‘This work was supported by …’
• The full official funding agency name should be given, i.e. ‘National Institutes of Health’, not ‘NIH’ (full RIN-approved list of UK funding agencies) Grant numbers should be given in brackets as follows: ‘[grant number xxxx]’
• Multiple grant numbers should be separated by a comma as follows: ‘[grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]’
• Agencies should be separated by a semi-colon (plus ‘and’ before the last funding agency
• Where individuals need to be specified for certain sources of funding the following text should be added after the relevant agency or grant number 'to [author initials]'.

An example is given here: ‘This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health [AA123456 to C.S., BB765432 to M.H.]; and the Alcohol & Education Research Council [hfygr667789].

Copyright Licence Form

Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts at Oxford Journals authors will be invited to complete an online copyright licence to publish form.

Please note that by submitting an article for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. You agree to notify OUP immediately if your details change. If your article is accepted for publication OUP will contact you using the email address you have used in the registration process. Please note that OUP does not retain copies of rejected articles.

Open Access Option for Authors

Oxford Review of Economic Policy offers the option of publishing under either a standard licence or an open access licence. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.

Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access licence in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access licence.

Details of the open access licences and open access charges.

OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.

Preprint Policy

Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page.

Review Policy

The Oxford Review of Economic Policy commissions most of its papers and gives the authors guidance as to the scope of their contributions. Nonetheless, the editors place considerable weight on peer review. We hold an editorial seminar to discuss the first drafts of all papers. Each paper has an appointed discussant who delivers their comments verbally in the seminar; these are followed up by a written version. Clearly the identity of the discussant is apparent to the author. All drafts are then sent to a second reviewer, whose report is normally delivered anonymously (unless the reviewer chooses otherwise). The identity of the authors is always apparent to the reviewers.