Submission Preflight (jmcb-submission)

When to trigger

• "Submitting tomorrow" — last check before uploading to Editorial Express
• Unsure which files, fee, and declarations the JMCB submission expects
• Confirming the manuscript meets the ~40-page recommendation and format rules
• Deciding how to handle restricted bank/central-bank data (data exemption)

Process facts (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准 — re-confirm on the OSU/Wiley pages)

• Owner/publisher: the journal is owned by the Ohio State University Department of Economics and published by Wiley-Blackwell; it appears ~7 issues/year. Online content is on Wiley Online Library (ISSN 1538-4616).
• Submission portal: submissions go through Editorial Express (editorialexpress.com/jmcb), not Wiley's ScholarOne or Editorial Manager — a common point of confusion for authors used to other Wiley journals.
• Submission fee: US$150 for subscribers / US$200 for non-subscribers (待核实；以官网为准), paid at submission. If an editor declines without consulting referees, the fee is refunded minus US$50 for administrative costs. No fee for resubmissions of invited revisions.
• Length: the journal strongly recommends manuscripts not exceed ~40 pages with 1.5 line spacing, where the count includes references, tables, and figures but excludes the online appendix; excessively long submissions may be summarily rejected.
• Data/replication: consistent with JMCB's archive heritage, expect a data/code expectation; if data are restricted, request a data exemption at submission and document the access path.
• Citation style: author-year in text; reference list alphabetical by author then chronological.
• Editors (verified 2026-06-22): the editorial group includes Sanjay Chugh and Pok-sang Lam (OSU), Robert DeYoung (Kansas), and Kenneth D. West (Wisconsin–Madison); other listings add Luc Laeven (ECB) and Jing Cynthia Wu (Illinois). Re-verify the current desks on the Wiley/OSU board before tailoring a cover letter.

Preflight checklist

Format & length

• Manuscript within the ~40-page recommendation (incl. references, tables, figures; excl. online appendix), 1.5 spacing
• PDF for the manuscript and the cover letter; mathematics survives PDF conversion intact
• Title page with author names, titles, and affiliations (confirm whether an anonymized version is also needed — blinding policy 待核实)
• Tables and figures self-contained (units, shock size, horizon on IRFs; FE/clustering/N on tables)
• Author-year citations; reference list alphabetical then chronological
• Online appendix prepared separately; main text self-contained

Portal, fee & files (Editorial Express)

• Submitting via Editorial Express (not ScholarOne/Editorial Manager)
• Submission fee ready (subscriber vs. non-subscriber rate); aware of the minus-US$50 desk-reject refund and the resubmission waiver
• Cover letter (PDF) stating fit, the policy contribution, and the JMCB vs. sibling-journal rationale
• Online appendix and any non-restricted replication materials attached

Data & declarations

• Replication/data plan decided; data-exemption request prepared if bank/central-bank data are restricted, with the access path documented
• Confirmed the paper is not under review elsewhere; conflict/funding disclosures ready
• AI not listed as an author

Two fees, two stages — do not conflate them

A frequent author error is confusing the submission fee with the Open Access APC. They occur at different stages and serve different purposes:

Budget for the submission fee now; the APC is a later, optional decision.

The cover letter does real work here

Because JMCB sits among close siblings, the cover letter should pre-empt the "wrong journal" reflex: state in two or three sentences why the paper is a JMCB contribution (the monetary/credit/banking mechanism and the policy payoff), not a JME, AEJ:Macro, or JBF paper. Name the contribution and the policy lever; do not merely summarize the abstract. If the data are restricted, note the data-exemption request in the letter so the editor is not surprised.

Anti-patterns

• Submitting through the wrong system (ScholarOne/Editorial Manager) because it is a Wiley journal — JMCB uses Editorial Express
• Blowing past ~40 pages by forgetting that references, tables, and figures count toward it
• Treating the Open Access APC (≈US$3,990, 待核实) as if it were the submission-time fee — they are different charges
• Restricted-data results with no data-exemption request and no access path
• A cover letter that does not say why this is a JMCB paper rather than a JME/JBF paper

Last-mile traps specific to JMCB

• Page count surprise. Authors counting only body text discover at upload that references and exhibits push them past ~40 pages. Verify the full count, with the online appendix split out, before you start the submission.
• Math that breaks in PDF. The guidelines warn that mathematics must survive PDF conversion; check that no equation renders as a missing glyph in the final file.
• Title page completeness. Names, titles, and affiliations are expected on the title page; confirm whether a separate anonymized file is also required (blinding policy 待核实).
• Cover letter as PDF. Both the manuscript and the cover letter are submitted as PDFs through Editorial Express.

Output format

【Length】≤ ~40pp incl. refs/tables/figures, excl. online appendix? [Y/N]
【Format】PDF; title page with affiliations; author-year cites? [Y/N]
【Exhibits】IRFs labeled (shock/units/horizon); tables show FE/clustering/N? [Y/N]
【Portal + fee】Editorial Express; correct fee tier ready? [Y/N]
【Data】replication plan / data-exemption + access path if restricted? [Y/N]
【Cover letter】states JMCB fit + policy contribution vs. siblings? [Y/N]
【Next step】submit via Editorial Express → jmcb-referee-strategy for what to expect

Supplementary resources

• templates/checklist.md — submission self-check
• templates/manuscript_template.md — lightweight manuscript scaffold
• ../../resources/official-source-map.md — official URLs and volatile facts