Economic Analysis: Guidelines for Authors

Submission rules (revised on July 28, 2022)

  1. The Journal mainly carries papers that make empirical analyses of important economic and social issues. Analytic and research submissions that provide proposals or suggestions regarding current and future policy issues or contribute to policy planning are particularly welcome.
  2. Submissions to the Journal can be made by both researchers from inside and outside the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
  3. Manuscripts for submission, regardless of what language they are in, are restricted to those that have not been published in any previous journal or works and have not been submitted to any other journal.
  4. Manuscripts for submission shall be either in the Japanese or English language, and their maximum length shall in principle be 20,000 characters or less in the case of Japanese (including figures and tables, which will be calculated as being 400 characters each), and 10,000 words in the case of English (including figures and tables, which will be calculated as being 200 words each).
  5. Manuscripts submitted shall not be returned. Acceptance or rejection shall be notified within three months of receipt in principle.
  6. A Subcommittee for the Review of Submitted Manuscripts (hereinafter “the Committee”) in charge of reviewing submissions shall be convened under the auspices of the Editorial Committee.
  7. The acceptance or rejection of manuscripts shall, based upon the peer reviews of several anonymous reviewers appointed by the Committee and following the judgement of the Committee, be decided upon by the editor-in-chief, who is the President of ESRI, with advice from the Committee.
    According to the judgement of the editor-in-chief and the Committee manuscripts may be rejected without being passed on to reviewers.
  8. The address for submissions is:
    The Editorial Secretariat of Economic Analysis,
    Cabinet Office Economic and Social Research Institute
    1-6-1 Nagata-Cho, Chiyoda-Ku, Tokyo 100-8914, Japan
  9. Style guide
    1. (1)Manuscripts should be A4-sized, with 36 lines of 40 characters per page in Japanese, and 36 lines per page in English using a 12-point size character or letters size.
    2. (2)Manuscripts should be accompanied by a copy of them in an electronic format.
    3. (3)A separate abstract of no more than one A4-sized page (no more than 500 characters in Japanese or 250 words in English according to the language used in the main text), three JEL Classification Codes and three keywords must be jointly submitted.
    4. (4)The sources for all data used in manuscripts must be made clear. In doing so, attempt to make explanations easily comprehensible so that third party researchers can verify the reproducibility of analysis results.
    5. (5)Use the prescribed cover letter(PDF:125KB)open PDF in a new window form posted on the ESRI website and insert your name, contact address, telephone number, e-mail address, matters related to the outline of data used, literature overlapping with the manuscripts submitted and any conflicts of interest.
    6. (6)In the event that English is not your mother tongue, request a native English speaker to perform the language editing of your manuscripts prior to submission.
    7. (7)When writing your manuscript ensure it conforms with the style guide below.

Guidelines regarding data used

  1. In principle, submission of the data used in the analysis when requested to do so by the Committee is a precondition for submission.
  2. In the event that individual (personal) data that cannot be provided to a third party is used, or when data whose reproducibility cannot be verified during the manuscript review process is used, submission may be deemed admissible as long as it meets any of the three criteria below. In such cases, the author is requested to complete the “outline of data used” section of the submission cover letter, and give consent for the publishing of the content detailed therein.
    1. (1)Data for which it is possible, via some sort of procedure, for researchers other than the author to acquire (for example, individual data that is usable by making an application to use for purposes other than those of the originally intended purpose).
    2. (2)Data that is at the present usable only by a few stakeholders (for example those affiliated to a certain institution or project) but for which it is planned to make usable to other researchers in the future (for example cases in which it is planned that the data will be made acquirable from an author’s web pages or the data archives of a public organization).
    3. (3)Limited to cases in which reproducibility is to be verified, data that can be used by reviewers or the Editorial Committee.
  3. In the event that it is difficult to make revisions to manuscripts due to data usage time restrictions or the conditions for usage of data, the data will be treated as in 2. above as “data whose reproducibility cannot be verified.”
  4. Even if the analysis uses data that satisfies the criteria above, submissions will not be accepted in the event that the subjects of the data or the company researched into do not approve of research results being used for academic purposes.
  5. It should be noted that even if the analysis uses data that is personal data not satisfying 2. above or data from fee-paying large media databases, in some cases the Committee will approve submissions on the condition that the program code used in the analysis is provided upon its request. Consult with the editorial secretariat in the event that there is a possibility that this is applicable to the manuscript for submission.

Style guidelines

  1. Structure of chapters
    When the manuscripts for submission are written in Japanese, number the chapter headings with full-width digits as 1. When the manuscripts for submission are written in English, number the chapter headings with half-width digits as 1. Number the section and subsection headings with half-width digits as 1.1 and 1.1.1 respectively.
    • 1.○○○・・・Chapters (Japanese)1.(English)
    • 1.1 ○○○・・・Sections (Japanese and English)
    • 1.1.1 ○○○・・・Subsections (Japanese and English)
    • 2.○○○・・・
  2. Footnotes
    Denote footnotes 1, 2 and so on placing the superscript numbers at the right hand of the relevant place or the end of sentences, and cite the content of the footnotes at the foot of the page.
  3. References
    In cases in which referential literature is quoted in the main text, indicate in the appropriate place the name (surname only) of the author, the year of publication (four-digit) and the page(s) cited. Show the name of all the papers on the references list.
    References for Japanese and foreign language literature should be shown as indicted below; Japanese literature should be listed in Japanese syllabary order of the authors, and foreign literature in alphabetical order of the authors.
    Japanese literature:
    Author name (paper name), journal name, year and month of publication, vol. x, pp. xx - xx.
    Author name (book title) publisher, year and month of publication

    * In the event that there are three or more authors denote them as “First Author, Second Author, Third Author” on the references list. (In the main text indicate as First Author name et al.)

    Foreign literature:
    Author name (*)“paper name,” journal name, year and month of publication, vol. (No.), pp. xx-xx.
    Author name (*),publisher, year and month of publication.

    * Put the author’s surname before their given name; from the second author onwards cite in order of surname followed by given name.
    In the event that there are three or more authors denote them as “First Author, Second Author, and Third Author” on the references list. (In the main text indicate as First Author name et al.

    • Example: Japanese literature
      浜田宏一「平成不況の性格:経済理論からの接近」『経済分析』2003, vol169, pp1-21.
      釜江廣志『日本の証券・金融市場の効率性』有斐閣,1999.
    • Example: Foreign literature
      Caballero, Ricardo J. and Mohamad L. Hammour "On the Timing and Efficiency of Creative Destruction," Quarterly Journal of Economics, September 1996, 111(3), pp.805-852.
      Johnson, Harry G. International Trade and Economic Growth: Studies in Pure Theory, London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd, 1958.
  4. Figure & table numbers
    When writing in Japanese, in each chapter put a continuously running series of numbers above each figure and table thus: Figure 1-1, Figure 1-2 for figures, and Table 1-1, Table 1-2 and so on for tables. When writing in English, in each chapter put a continuously running series of numbers above each figure and table thus: Figure 1-1, Figure 1-2 for figures, and Table 1-1, Table 1-2 and so on for tables.
  5. Files must be in Word format. Figures and tables should be attached to the Word file and submitted. In the event that figures and tables are created using Excel, it is recommended that the Excel file is simultaneously submitted.