Work

On the determinants of journal rejection rates: evidence from the Journal of Financial Economics

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: We examine how academic journal reviewers’ experience with the peer-review process influences their propensity to recommend manuscript acceptance or rejection. We use data on the total recommended rejections and acceptances for all referees who reviewed at least one paper for the Journal of Financial Economics (JFE) between 1994 and 2020. We show that reviewers who write more reports are more likely to recommend the acceptance of manuscripts. We also find that older reviewers, those who graduated from or are affiliated with prestigious universities, and those with more and highly cited publications are more likely to recommend acceptance. There is also some evidence that reviewers with doctoral training in economics, mathematics, physics, and engineering are more likely to recommend acceptance than those with a PhD in finance. We find no consistent evidence of significant differences between genders or among reviewer demographic characteristics. We also document that reviewers who themselves publish more successfully in JFE and publish highly cited articles are, ceteris paribus , more likely to recommend rejection of reviewed manuscripts. Our study utilizes a unique research setting to gain new insights into the determinants of the peer-review process in scientific journals.

Source: Financial Innovation

DOI: 10.1186/s40854-026-00908-x

Authors: Karel Hrazdil, Pavel Král, Jiri Novak, Nattavut Suwanyangyuan

Institutions: Simon Fraser University, Prague University of Economics and Business, Charles University, Brock University

Language: English

Topic: Publishing and Scholarly Communication

Subfield: History and Philosophy of Science

Field: Arts and Humanities

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: diamond