First Submission Style Guidelines

The final (accepted paper) style guidelines are here. Do not expect them to be perfect. You need not follow the real style guidelines until your paper has been accepted. (Before an R&R, it would be a waste of your time. Following only these first style guidelines here.)

Style and Copyright Guidelines

Do not bother much with style guidelines before your receive an R&R. Instead, make your paper as easy to read as possible. However, the minimal requests include:

Papers should always have a date and an abstract.
Text must be readable, typically implying 12pt fonts, at least 1.2 line spacing, and 1 inch margins.
There must not be more than 30 pages, or 50 pages including tables, figures, appendix, etc. Put robustness tests into an "external appendix" file for reference.
The most unusual aspects of the CFR (compared to the JF or RFS) is that we want most exhibits (tables and figures) to have a "description" section followed by an "interpretation" sentence or two. What should an interested reader looking primarily (only) at this exhibit learn from and remember about it? Look at the recent issues of the journal. The description should contain the sample period and number of observations.

If possible

Please name your manuscript's pdf file the same way google scholar names papers in bibtex entries: lastnamefirstauthor-year-firsttitleworld (excepting articles). For example, Google names A Theory of Fads, Fashion, Custom, and Cultural Change as Informational CascadesAuthor(s): Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer, Ivo Welch, Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 100, No. 5 (Oct., 1992), pp. 992-1026 in bikhchandani1992theory.
The CFR prefers descriptive paper titles. For example, we prefer "The Empire destroyed the Rebels" to "Empire and Rebels" or "Is there a relation between the Empire and Rebels?" When someone does a Google search, the title should signal what the paper finds, not just what the paper is musing about.

Once Accepted...

After your paper has been accepted, it is time to become serious about formatting. Please read carefully and follow style.html.

PS: Unfortunately, the Editorial Express (EE) online system does not have a simple "accepted" choice. Its top choice is "accepted for publication on the web." I take it that this means that the paper is accepted for the web until it appears in the "real" print journal (to the extent that anyone still prints). So, to clarify, if you receive an email that states "accepted for publication on the web," it means your paper was accepted. Period.