American Economic Review Submission Guide

Official AEA pages explain originality, disclosure, data-code policy, AI disclosure, fees, length recommendations, and the submission portal. They do not tell authors whether the manuscript has enough cross-subfield consequence for AER, whether the contribution is short enough for AER:Insights, or whether the paper would receive a better first read from an AEJ editor.

This guide focuses on the pre-upload judgment: whether the paper's economics contribution is broad enough for AER, whether the first 3 pages make that breadth visible, and whether the fee, length, disclosure, and data-code package are already clean before ScholarOne submission.

For the underlying journal profile, see American Economic Review.

For a broader check of the argument before choosing a journal, use the Manusights AI manuscript review and compare the feedback against the AER vs AER:Insights vs AEJ routing decision.

Source: AER Submission Guidelines, AER Editors, accessed May 2026.

AER is one of six AEA journals. Choosing the right family member matters:

The strategic implication: AER expects cross-subfield interest. A paper whose contribution is primarily within one subfield often fits AEJ:Macro/Micro/Applied/Policy better. AER:Insights is for shorter top-tier work.

Verify the current Editor-in-Chief on the journal's editorial-team page before quoting any name in a submission cover letter. The EIC role rotates on a multi-year term. The journal uses field-specific Co-Editors handling submissions across macro, micro, applied, theory, labor, public, and other subfields.

The journal is one of economics' "top-5" flagships, alongside:

• Econometrica (Econometric Society / Wiley), which lists its editors on the journal's editorial-team page

• Journal of Political Economy (U Chicago), which uses a lead-editor structure

• Quarterly Journal of Economics (OUP / Harvard), with a multi-editor structure

• Review of Economic Studies (OUP), with a multi-managing-editor structure

These journals compete for the same papers, and authors often submit to one and resubmit to another after rejection.

AER's fee is unusual among economics top-5:

Papers rejected without review receive a 50% refund of the submission fee. Accepted papers first submitted on or after February 1, 2024 also carry a $15 per typeset page publication fee when page proofs are sent.

The strategic implication: AER's fee is not just "$200." Membership status and country classification affect the cost, and a desk rejection still costs money even with the 50% refund. Authors should settle AER vs AER:Insights vs AEJ routing before paying.

Three operational signals govern editorial assessment:

This is what editors check before review: whether the paper is eligible under AEA policy, whether the manuscript is self-contained enough for a top-5 economics read, and whether the abstract and first 3 pages make a broad economics contribution visible before the technical appendix carries the burden.

1. Cross-subfield interest. AER's top-5 standard is broad-economics interest. A finance paper whose contribution interests labor and public economists; a macro paper whose result matters across subfields. Subfield-deep work fits AEJ family better.

2. Methodological rigor at the top-5 standard. Identification, sample size, robustness, and reporting standards meet the highest bar in economics.

3. Genuine contribution beyond extending established work. Top-5 acceptance requires moving the field, not just adding to an existing literature.

Recent AER issues span the breadth of economics: macro, micro, applied (especially labor, public, development, education), theory, behavioral, and methodological work. For specific recent papers and DOIs, see AER on the AEA website. The DOI prefix is 10.1257/aer.* with paper-specific identifiers.

For initial submission via the AEA Editorial Manager:

1. Manuscript in standard AEA format

1. Title page, authors, affiliations with ORCID identifiers

1. Abstract within standard length

1. Cover letter explaining cross-subfield contribution

1. Submission fee payment based on AEA membership and country classification

1. Suggested reviewers as needed

1. Conflict-of-interest disclosure for all authors

1. Data and code availability following AEA Data and Code Availability Policy

1. Pre-registration link for empirical work where applicable

1. Funding statement disclosing grants, fellowships, and sponsor support

1. Author contributions statement specifying each co-author's role

1. Ethics statement where human subjects, experiments, or sensitive data are involved

1. AI disclosure where generative-AI tools were used in writing or analysis

A American Economic Review submission readiness check before upload can flag whether the cross-subfield case is visible, whether methodology meets top-5 standards, and whether AER vs AER:Insights vs AEJ family fits best.

If you want a fast pre-upload check without choosing a paid review yet, run the American Economic Review manuscript fit check and set American Economic Review as the target journal.

AER's editorial flow follows the AEA's published policies and what authors report through top-5 economics community channels. Treat these as planning ranges, not promises.

• Day 0: ScholarOne upload. The ScholarOne submission portal portal accepts the package, runs fee and AI-disclosure checks, and routes to a Co-Editor.

• Days 1 to 14: Administrative review. Editorial staff verify fee payment, data-and-code policy compliance, AI disclosure, and pre-registration links before any external review. Papers rejected without review receive a 50 percent fee refund.

• Days 14 to 60: First Co-Editor read. The handling Co-Editor evaluates cross-subfield contribution and decides whether to send for external review. Desk rejections at top-5 economics journals typically land in the first 30 to 60 days.

• Days 60 to 180: Peer review. Two to three reviewers typically return reports on a 3 to 6 month cadence; identification-heavy applied papers and theory papers extend the window because reviewers verify the central argument carefully.

• Days 180 to 240: First editorial decision. Reject, R&R, or accept. R&R is the most common positive outcome; outright acceptance at first decision is rare at top-5 journals.

• Days 240 to 540: Revision rounds and acceptance. Single-revision acceptances run roughly 12 months; multi-round revisions push closer to 18 months, which is typical for top-5 economics papers.

A AER submission readiness check before you upload can identify whether the cross-subfield case, data-code policy compliance, and pre-registration package meet the top-5 standard.

Read the public instructions for mechanics, then pressure-test the package the way an editor will see it. The review tells you whether your paper clears the American Economic Review fit check before upload, especially around subfield-deep paper without a cross-subfield interest case in the introduction, identification strategy and robustness package below the AER top-5 standard, and wrong AEA journal chosen given length, subfield depth, and contribution scope. Paid Manusights reviews include a 60-day money-back guarantee, and we do not train models on submitted manuscripts.

Across economics manuscripts targeting the American Economic Review, three recurring decision risks matter most across submissions that AER coeditors filter out within the desk-screen window before the paper is assigned to a referee. (AER submission guidelines route authors through ScholarOne and publish the fee, disclosure, data-code, originality, and field-experiment requirements, but the cross-subfield contribution screen still has to happen in the manuscript itself.) Use the three checks below before you open ScholarOne upload slot.

A Manusights review checks whether your paper clears the AER-specific readiness checks that official AEA instructions cannot evaluate from a generic ScholarOne checklist. Paid Manusights reviews include a 60-day money-back guarantee; submitted manuscripts are not used for model training.

Subfield-deep paper without a cross-subfield interest case in the introduction

Across AER-targeted manuscripts, we consistently see authors write an introduction that positions the contribution within one subfield literature (labor / public / macro / development / IO / etc.) without making the cross-subfield interest case the AER coeditor needs to see in the first 3 pages.

AER coeditors specifically check whether the introduction names at least 2-3 distinct subfield audiences who should care about the result, with citations to recent AER papers from each of those subfields.

Manuscripts where the introduction reads as if written for a top-field-journal audience (JOLE / JPubE / JME / JDE / RAND) consistently get redirected to the appropriate AEJ family journal (AEJ:Macro, AEJ:Micro, AEJ:Applied, or AEJ:Policy) within the 30-60 day desk-rejection window.

The fix is to rewrite the introduction's first 3 pages to name the cross-subfield audiences explicitly, cite at least 2 recent AER papers from adjacent subfields that the contribution speaks to, and explain in the cover letter why this paper deserves a broad-economics readership rather than the narrower top-field-journal audience.

Check whether your AER introduction makes the cross-subfield case →

Identification strategy and robustness package below the AER top-5 standard

We frequently see AER manuscripts arrive with identification strategies and robustness check packages calibrated to top-field-journal expectations rather than to AER's top-5 standard.

Standard top-field-journal practice (one main IV with first-stage F-stat reporting, parallel-trends plot for DiD, one robustness table in the appendix) reads as insufficient to AER coeditors and referees who expect: multiple identification strategies that triangulate the causal claim (IV + DiD + RD where possible), field-experiment registration where AEA policy requires an RCT identification number, and robustness checks in the main paper rather than only in the appendix.

The fix is to add at least one alternative identification approach, move the most important robustness check from appendix to main paper, and document registration in the methods section where the study design requires it.

Check whether your AER identification and robustness package clears the top-5 bar →

Wrong AEA journal chosen given length, subfield depth, and contribution scope

The third recurring pattern in AER-targeted manuscripts is authors choosing AER as the submission target when length, subfield depth, and contribution scope align better with another AEA journal.

AER:Insights publishes shorter papers (under 7,000 words) with a single clean result and is the right home for contributions that can be stated without the full AER-length model, appendix, or empirical architecture; the AEJ family (Macro / Micro / Applied / Policy) is the right home for subfield-deep papers; AER itself targets cross-subfield contributions of broad-economics interest at the standard top-5-journal length (typically 35-45 formatted pages with full empirical or theoretical apparatus).

Manuscripts misrouted to AER face a 30-60 day desk-rejection window followed by a recommendation to resubmit to AER:Insights or AEJ; the fix is to honestly assess the contribution against each AEA journal's editorial identity before submission and route accordingly.

Check whether AER is the right AEA-family route for your manuscript →

• Is the American Economic Review a good journal?

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Last verified: May 2026 against AER editorial pages.