Review Process (jbf-review-process)
When to trigger
- Before submitting, to understand how JBF handles a manuscript
- After submission, to interpret status changes in Editorial Manager
- When deciding how to engage with the fee, the desk screen, and reviewers
How JBF review works (verified 2026-06-20)
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Publisher / platform. Elsevier; the editorial pipeline runs in Editorial Manager, reached from the journal homepage on ScienceDirect.
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Managing Editor. Christa Bouwman (Texas A&M University) is listed by ScienceDirect as Managing Editor. Current Co-Editors are Edith Hotchkiss and Xiaoyan Zhang.
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The fee funds review quality. The USD 350 non-refundable submission fee is explicitly used to fund academic activities and reviewer rewards for timely, high-quality reports. This is unusual among top finance journals and signals an emphasis on review turnaround.
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Desk screen first. Editors can desk-reject without sending the paper to referees — even after the fee is paid. A clean, on-scope, well-anonymized submission is what clears this first screen. Free SSRN posting becomes available once the paper passes this initial desk review.
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Double-anonymized refereeing. Identities of both authors and reviewers are concealed. Referees assess scope fit (banking / intermediation / capital markets / corporate finance / regulation), contribution, identification, data, and robustness.
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Decisions. Expect the standard ladder: reject, major/minor revision (R&R), or accept. Treat any positive decision short of accept as an R&R and route to
jbf-rebuttal.
What clears the desk screen
Reading Editorial Manager statuses
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"With Editor" for an extended period usually means the desk screen or referee recruitment, not a hidden verdict; JBF recruits referees by banking/markets subfield, which can take longer for niche topics. Do not infer outcomes from status text.
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"Under Review" — referees secured. The reviewer-reward design favors timely reports, but do not assume a specific turnaround; confirm any timing expectation against the journal's current author guidelines.
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A status reverting (e.g., back to "With Editor") commonly reflects a referee dropping out, not a decision being drafted.
- Polite status queries after a long silence go through Editorial Manager — never to a guessed editor name.
Desk-screen failure patterns at JBF
| Pattern |
Why it gets desked |
| Generic asset-pricing or macro paper with no intermediation content |
scope mismatch with a bank/markets/regulation journal |
| Causal regulation claim with no identification design |
referees would reject; the editor saves everyone the round |
| Identity leakage (acknowledgements, metadata, "our earlier JBF paper") |
breaks double anonymization; administrative bounce |
| Survey-length introduction with no stated contribution |
signals the contribution is not yet formed |
What JBF referee reports tend to cover
Reports at this venue typically work through: scope fit; the contribution delta against the intermediation literature; identification (endogenous regulation, omitted bank risk, clustering choices); data construction (merger handling, vintages, consolidation filters); robustness breadth; and whether policy implications stay inside the identified margin. Pre-empt each in the manuscript and the desk-to-decision path shortens.
Anti-patterns
- Treating the fee as a guarantee of full review — it is not; desk rejection still happens
- Submitting a paper out of JBF's bank/finance scope and hoping referees stretch it
- Naming a specific "Editor-in-Chief" in correspondence on the basis of unverified secondary sources
- Breaking anonymity and forcing an administrative bounce-back before review
Output format
【Scope】fits banking/intermediation/markets/regulation? [Y/N]
【Desk readiness】anonymized + declarations + fee/waiver? [Y/N]
【Status read】desk screen → referees → decision
【Next step】on R&R → jbf-rebuttal
Supplementary resources
