Editorial code of conduct

Editors and Coeditors treat all reports and cover letters confidentially. The referee names and cover letters are never made public. In particular, they are not shared with authors, other referees, or Associate Editors.

If an Editor or Coeditor has a conflict of interest with an author, they cannot handle the paper and do not have access to either the referee reports or the names of the referees. Such a conflict of interest exists with the following categories of people:

• Current colleagues and graduate students at the same institution. A person is a "colleague" of a Coeditor if they are (a) a member of the same permanent department, (b) a member of a different department at the same university, or (c) a member of a department the Coeditor is visiting. Cases (b) and (c) exclude people with whom the Coeditor has no collegial interaction.
• Active coauthors. This means coauthors of current papers or papers published less than 5 years ago.
• Students for whom the Coeditor was the main advisor.
• Students the Coeditor advised in a less central way (e.g. thesis committee, letter writer) if the paper is either submitted within 5 years of the person’s graduation, or contains work from the time the person was a student.
• Family members, close personal friends, or others with whom the Coeditor has a close professional relationship, even if not specifically listed above (e.g. thesis advisors, long-standing coauthors, colleagues at a former department).

The Editor and Coeditors cannot submit papers for publication in Theoretical Economics. Sometimes the Coeditor may have a paper under review at the journal when they are appointed. In these cases, they cannot see the names of the referees or their correspondence with the handling Coeditor.

Referee reports and cover letters remain in the editorial system and future Coeditors may access them for 6 years; Editors may access them for 10 years.

Editors and Coeditors cannot see past submissions or the associated records (e.g. referee assignments) if there is a conflict of interest (e.g. same institution, recent coauthor, recent student) or if they are an author. For papers transferred from Econometrica, the referee name and cover letter are transferred only with the permission of the referee.

Rules for referees

The rules on conflict of interest for referees are the same as for editors. These are detailed here.