jbf-review-process

Review Process (jbf-review-process)

When to trigger

• Before submitting, to understand how JBF handles a manuscript
• After submission, to interpret status changes in Editorial Manager
• When deciding how to engage with the fee, the desk screen, and reviewers

How JBF review works (verified 2026-06-20)

• Publisher / platform. Elsevier; the editorial pipeline runs in Editorial Manager, reached from the journal homepage on ScienceDirect.
• Managing Editor. Christa Bouwman (Texas A&M University) is listed by ScienceDirect as Managing Editor. Current Co-Editors are Edith Hotchkiss and Xiaoyan Zhang.
• The fee funds review quality. The USD 350 non-refundable submission fee is explicitly used to fund academic activities and reviewer rewards for timely, high-quality reports. This is unusual among top finance journals and signals an emphasis on review turnaround.
• Desk screen first. Editors can desk-reject without sending the paper to referees — even after the fee is paid. A clean, on-scope, well-anonymized submission is what clears this first screen. Free SSRN posting becomes available once the paper passes this initial desk review.
• Double-anonymized refereeing. Identities of both authors and reviewers are concealed. Referees assess scope fit (banking / intermediation / capital markets / corporate finance / regulation), contribution, identification, data, and robustness.
• Decisions. Expect the standard ladder: reject, major/minor revision (R&R), or accept. Treat any positive decision short of accept as an R&R and route to jbf-rebuttal.

What clears the desk screen

• [ ] In scope for a bank/intermediation-focused finance journal (see jbf-topic-selection)
• [ ] A defensible identification/empirical design (see jbf-identification-strategy)
• [ ] Fully anonymized manuscript + separate title page
• [ ] Fee paid or waiver code entered; declarations complete

Reading Editorial Manager statuses

• "With Editor" for an extended period usually means the desk screen or referee recruitment, not a hidden verdict; JBF recruits referees by banking/markets subfield, which can take longer for niche topics. Do not infer outcomes from status text.
• "Under Review" — referees secured. The reviewer-reward design favors timely reports, but do not assume a specific turnaround; confirm any timing expectation against the journal's current author guidelines.
• A status reverting (e.g., back to "With Editor") commonly reflects a referee dropping out, not a decision being drafted.
• Polite status queries after a long silence go through Editorial Manager — never to a guessed editor name.

Desk-screen failure patterns at JBF

| Pattern | Why it gets desked |

| --- | --- |

| Generic asset-pricing or macro paper with no intermediation content | scope mismatch with a bank/markets/regulation journal |

| Causal regulation claim with no identification design | referees would reject; the editor saves everyone the round |

| Identity leakage (acknowledgements, metadata, "our earlier JBF paper") | breaks double anonymization; administrative bounce |

| Survey-length introduction with no stated contribution | signals the contribution is not yet formed |

What JBF referee reports tend to cover

Reports at this venue typically work through: scope fit; the contribution delta against the intermediation literature; identification (endogenous regulation, omitted bank risk, clustering choices); data construction (merger handling, vintages, consolidation filters); robustness breadth; and whether policy implications stay inside the identified margin. Pre-empt each in the manuscript and the desk-to-decision path shortens.

Anti-patterns

• Treating the fee as a guarantee of full review — it is not; desk rejection still happens
• Submitting a paper out of JBF's bank/finance scope and hoping referees stretch it
• Naming a specific "Editor-in-Chief" in correspondence on the basis of unverified secondary sources
• Breaking anonymity and forcing an administrative bounce-back before review

Output format

【Scope】fits banking/intermediation/markets/regulation? [Y/N]
【Desk readiness】anonymized + declarations + fee/waiver? [Y/N]
【Status read】desk screen → referees → decision
【Next step】on R&R → jbf-rebuttal

Supplementary resources

• [../../resources/official-source-map.md](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — sources for editor, fee, review-model, data-policy, and submission facts