Society of Financial Studies
Adopted by Unanimous Vote of the SFS Executive Committee
on August 10, 2006. Updated July 27, 2020.
Editors
Submission by Executive Editor
New submissions by the Executive Editor are not permitted.
Submissions from the following individuals will always be treated as an editorial conflict of interest: same institution, current or recent past co-author (for at least within the last 10 years), former PhD student (in case the editor was the main advisor), former PhD advisors, close friendships, relatives, and papers that criticize or closely compete with an Editor’s work or that of other members of the above categories. Cases not directly covered by this classification, depending on the circumstances, may still be treated as an editorial conflict. The Executive Editor retains final decision authority regarding publishing any paper except in cases that have an identified COI. The Executive Editor is entirely recused from the process on papers where there is an identified COI.
An Editor may not handle any paper submitted by a family member. If a family member submits a paper, the related editor is blocked from viewing information about the submitted paper, including referee names and recommendations, and is not involved in the review or decision in any way.
General policy
If any of the Editors feel that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a submission, they will inform the Executive Editor.
Referees
Potential conflict of interest for referees
The invitation letter to referees will include the following wording: “If you feel there is any potential conflict of interest in your refereeing this paper because of your relationship with the author (e.g. in terms of close friendship or conflict/rivalry) or for any other reason, please declare it. By accepting this invitation, it is assumed there is no potential conflict of interest.” Standard policy will be not to use a referee if a conflict of interest has been declared, but the Editor may use his/her discretion [after consulting with the Executive Editor].
Authors
Sources of funding
On submission, authors will be asked to complete a Conflict of Interest Disclosure Form per the proposal that was adopted as of June 27, 2016, as below: Disclosure Policy for Authors.
Submissions to any Society for Financial Studies journal (“Journal”), including the Review of Asset Pricing Studies, the Review of Corporate Finance Studies, and the Review of Financial Studies, should conform to the disclosure principles outlined in the policy. For papers accepted for publication, disclosure will take two forms. If the disclosure statement is brief, it will be included in the “acknowledgements” footnote. If the disclosure statement is longer, then disclosure will have two parts: (i) a brief statement summarizing potential conflicts of interest that will be included in the “acknowledgments” footnote; (ii) a more detailed description of the activities and relationships that are the source of a potential conflict of interest. This more detailed account will be available to the public. The “acknowledgments” footnote will include a pointer/link to the detailed electronic version of the disclosure statement which will be archived on the Journal’s website.