AEA Papers and Proceedings

ISSN 2574-0768 (Print) | ISSN 2574-0776 (Online)

Editorial Policy

Selection Process

The AEA Papers and Proceedings (P&P) includes thirty-five sessions selected from the AEA program at the ASSA Annual Meeting.

Twenty-eight are chosen by the president-elect of the AEA in consultation with the AEA Program Committee and are intended to illuminate the current state of research and thinking in economics. Selections always include a mix of invited and submitted sessions as well as the AEA Distinguished Lecture.

Seven additional sessions are selected by other AEA committees from the sessions they organize: the Committee on Economic Education, the Committee on Economic Statistics, and the Committee on the Status of LGBTQ+ Individuals in the Economics Profession (one session each) and the Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession and the Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economics Profession (two sessions each).

The papers are edited for logic and clarity but are not subjected to a formal refereeing process. In rare cases, the editors have refused to publish papers that fail to meet AEA standards.

Copyright Policy

Papers published in the P&P are copyrighted by the American Economic Association. If the author wishes to submit an expanded version of the paper to another publication, the editors of that journal will have to determine whether the ideas presented in the expanded work represent a sufficiently significant contribution to the literature beyond the P&P article. It is the author's responsibility to make the editor of the other publication aware of the P&P paper.

Authors are often interested in posting the paper in a working paper series. In general, the AEA makes no copyright claims on working papers, which typically exist prior to submission and differ from an accepted, published paper. Because P&P papers are accepted for publication quickly without going through multiple revisions, authors are permitted to post the submitted version of their P&P paper as a working paper at or around the same time as submission to P&P. It is recommended that the author include a notification that a version of the paper is forthcoming in the AEA Papers and Proceedings.

Disclosure Policy

All authors must provide disclosure statements identifying potential conflicts of interest. If authors have nothing to disclose, they are obligated to submit a statement explicitly stating this. Disclosure statements should also include whether IRB approval was obtained for the project, and if not, state the reason(s). For published papers, a brief summary of potential conflicts of interest should appear in the acknowledgement footnote. The entire disclosure statement is posted with the paper on the journal's website. View the full Disclosure Policy.

Data Legality Policy

All data used in papers published in journals of the American Economic Association should be legally acquired. The editor may reject the paper if some or all of the data were not legally obtained. View the full Data Legality Policy (effective July 2023).

Data and Code Availability Policy

It is the policy of the American Economic Association to publish papers only if the data and code used in the analysis are clearly and precisely documented and access to the data and code is nonexclusive to the authors.

Authors of accepted papers that contain empirical work, simulations, or experimental work must provide, prior to acceptance, information about the data, programs, and other details of the computations sufficient to permit replication, as well as information about access to data and programs. View the full Data and Code Availability Policy.

RCT Registration Policy

It is the policy of the AEA journals that all work involving field experiments must be registered with the AEA RCT Registry prior to submission for publication.