Editorial standards

Theoretical Economics publishes research in all areas of economic theory. We welcome submissions in both pure and applied theory. Papers with empirical or experimental content will be considered, though a paper must contain a substantial and innovative theoretical component to be accepted.

A paper that is based on a short paper in a conference volume must meet the same criterion. That is, it must make a significant and innovative contribution to the literature, where the literature includes the short paper. In particular, a paper that consists primarily of the exposition and proofs of results published in a conference volume typically does not satisfy the criterion.

We have no maximum or minimum restriction on the length of papers. There is no separate section for "notes." However, we encourage authors to write concisely, focus on the principal idea, and resist lengthy embellishments. The editor may return excessively long submissions to authors and ask them to shorten the paper before resubmitting. From 2017, within each issue papers appear in increasing order of their length.

The use of supplementary online appendices should be minimized, and generally restricted to mechanical or incidental material (e.g. algebraic derivations, the code for algorithms, or purely mathematical material that in principle could be found elsewhere, but is presented as a service to the reader). Supplementary files should not be used for extensions, robustness checks, or proofs of results that appear in the paper.

Theoretical Economics was founded with the aim of becoming the leading field journal in economic theory (see the 2006 Open Letter to Promotion Committees). Recent data suggest that TE has achieved this aim. The 2016 Annual Report contains a range of journal impact factors, calculated ten years after TE first appeared. And this recent working paper looks at citations over 2015–2019 and shows that TE ranks #11 among all journals and #1 among theory journals.

An important goal of Theoretical Economics is to speed the review process. First, we aim to quickly conduct reviews (see our current turnaround statistics). Second, we aim to have papers go through at most two rounds of refereeing. To fulfill this goal, we try to write editorial letters that provide clear and sufficient conditions for publication, and reject papers that we believe are unlikely to be acceptable by a second round. We refrain from overly speculative revisions, especially "reject & resubmit" decisions.

See the "Paper submission" section of the submissions page for the format requirements for submitted papers.

Hard copy

Through 2009, we produced a hard copy of the four quarterly issues of the journal annually. Starting in 2010, a hard copy of every issue is produced and bundled with an issue of Econometrica. January 2024 the journal moved to online only and no longer offers a hard copy of its issues.

Accepted papers

Accepted papers will be available on the journal website soon after acceptance and receipt of any cited references that are unpublished and not available in a stable public archive (like one that participates in RePEc, including MPRA). They will be copy-edited and formatted before publication. Papers are published in the order of receipt of the final versions. Through 2016, the order within each issue was also according to the order of receipt of the final versions. From 2017, within each issue papers are ordered by their length. From 2010 to 2018, issues were published three times a year, in January, May, and September. Starting in 2019, issues are published four times a year, in January, May, July and November.