Rejected from Journal of Economic Theory? The 6 Best Journals to Submit Next

Economics has no transfer service. There is no in-house referral that carries your manuscript and its reports to a sister journal the way Nature Portfolio or Cell Press do for the experimental sciences. The cascade in economics is the field's informal submission ladder, and you walk it manually: you resubmit to the next journal yourself, you decide whether to attach the prior referee reports, and each submission starts fresh. The only hard rule is exclusivity, since a paper can be under consideration at exactly one journal at a time.

Here is how the ladder routes by rejection reason:

This routing table is Manusights editorial framing, not a JET-published policy.

Desk-rejected for fit, not quality? If JET said the work is sound but better suited elsewhere, the venue is the problem, not the paper. Route pure theory to Theoretical Economics, game theory to Games and Economic Behavior, and mathematics-forward formal models to the Journal of Mathematical Economics. Send the manuscript out within days. No revision is needed for a clean fit redirect.

Rejected because the increment was unclear? Fix the contribution paragraph before you move. The next theory referee will ask the same question JET did: what does this theorem deliver that the nearest existing result did not? Name the closest prior theorem by author and year, state the precise weakening, strengthening, or generalization, and only then resubmit. Springer's Economic Theory and International Economic Review reward a sharply stated increment.

Rejected after review on the proofs? Repair the proof appendix first. A hand-waved lemma or an assumption introduced after the theorem will surface at every peer-reviewed theory journal, so fixing it once saves the next two submission cycles. Then choose between a tier-matched move (TE, GEB, JME) and an aspirational reach.

Want to aim higher, not lower? A JET rejection does not force you down the ladder. If the result has broad reach, International Economic Review takes theory with applied weight, and the Review of Economic Studies is the realistic top-five reach for theory with cross-field implications. Both are longer odds and longer reviews, so weigh the clock against the upside.

In our pre-submission review work with Journal of Economic Theory submissions, the rejections we see most often cluster into a few testable patterns. JET does not publish manuscript-level desk-rejection reasons, so treat these as checks against your own draft, not journal statistics. Across our pre-submission reviews of papers targeting Journal of Economic Theory, the same friction shows up again and again, and almost all of it is fixable before you resubmit anywhere.

The theorem leads and the economics never arrives. The most common pattern in JET-targeted manuscripts we review is an abstract and introduction that open with the model class, the payoff structure, and the equilibrium concept, while the economic question stays buried until after the proof sketch. A JET coeditor reads the opening to decide whether the main theorem is an economics result, not only a mathematics result.

When the model setup leads, routing and significance both have to be reconstructed from inside the proof, and the paper stalls at the desk. The testable fix: the first sentence of the abstract and the cover letter must name the economic question, and the theorem statement should follow in economics vocabulary. This single change is the highest-leverage edit before any resubmission.

The increment over the nearest theorem is asserted, not demonstrated. In our Journal of Economic Theory reviews, manuscripts routinely cite the right literature but never name the precise delta over it. The introduction says the paper "builds on" or "extends" prior results without specifying whether it weakens an assumption, strengthens a conclusion, generalizes the signal or payoff structure, or introduces a new equilibrium concept.

JET handling editors cannot assess a contribution they have to reconstruct, so the manuscript waits. The fix is a one-sentence contribution claim in the introduction and the cover letter that names the closest result by author and year, the exact weakening or strengthening, and the new economic conclusion the prior result did not deliver.

If the theorem statement and the stated increment do not match, the claim is overpromising, and the next referee will catch it.

The proof appendix carries gaps the main text hides. A recurring pattern in the JET submissions we review is a clean-looking main text resting on an appendix with hand-waved lemmas, an assumption introduced only after the theorem, or a missing equilibrium-existence argument. JET expects complete proofs with careful definitions, and a theory referee reads the appendix line by line.

Because these gaps travel with the manuscript, they reappear at Theoretical Economics, Games and Economic Behavior, and the Journal of Mathematical Economics too. The testable fix: every lemma states what it implies, every assumption appears before the theorem that uses it, and the existence argument is explicit. Repair this before the next submission, not after the next rejection.

The venue defaults to JET without naming the alternative. The fourth pattern we see is a manuscript misrouted between JET and Theoretical Economics, the most consequential venue choice for pure-theory work. Decision theory with axiomatic foundations, mechanism design with structural elegance, and information design often fit Theoretical Economics more naturally, while theory with applied, quantitative, or macro components and broader reach fits JET.

A cover letter that defaults to JET without addressing this choice signals the author did not read the venue. After a JET rejection this pattern is a gift: it points directly at the right next journal.

Check whether your JET increment paragraph names the closest theorem before you resubmit

Do not just blast the paper down the ladder. The fastest way to collect a second rejection is to resend the same manuscript that JET turned away, only to a less suitable venue. If JET rejected after review, the referee comments are a free roadmap, and the next theory referee will ask the same questions. A fit-only desk rejection is the one case where you can move immediately without revising; everything else needs real work first.

Be honest about which bucket you are in. If the proofs have gaps, no cover letter can rescue them, and a stronger venue will reject faster. If the increment only works with hedging like "we extend the model to N players" and never names a new economic implication, the result may be a small extension better suited to a Note or a field journal than to another top theory journal.

And if you keep defaulting to JET-adjacent venues out of habit, read five recent papers from your top candidate before you commit, because venue fit is the cheapest rejection to avoid.

When you do cite the nearest prior result in your next cover letter, cite it precisely. Representative recent JET DOIs you can model the citation format on include 10.1016/j.jet.2023.105456, 10.1016/j.jet.2024.105789, and 10.1016/j.jet.2024.105892; confirm the specific paper, author, year, and theorem number against the journal's own issue archive before you rely on it.

Each journal on the ladder runs its own submission portal, so check the destination's system before you start: JET, GEB, and JME all submit through Elsevier's Editorial Manager (editorialmanager.com/jet for JET), Theoretical Economics through the Econometric Society's system, and International Economic Review through Wiley's portal with its $150 submission fee.