<p>Economics journals generally do not require any degree or university affiliation in order to submit an article. Technically anyone can submit an article to a journal and it can be accepted and published.</p>
<p>All you need to do is to follow journal guidelines for formatting and making data and code available for replication. Each journal can have slightly different rules so you need to check journal website prior to submitting. Every journal will have guidelines for submissions. In addition typically you will have to pay submission fee.</p>
<p>This is technically all you need to do to get your paper being looked at by editors and having some chance of getting published.</p>
<p>Most peer reviews are not double blind so of course having someone famous from a top university as a co-author might increase your chances but it's not something that would make or break paper on its own. A bigger advantage of having someone who is seasoned scholar is that they will be able to help you make the paper more readable, i.e. give advice on what needs to be in main body what in appendix, what needs more explanation what is trivial and can be shortened. Also in good journals even excellent papers get often rejected so having someone who can pay for the submission fees from university grant is also helpful. You should expect to get 3-4 rejections even on a good paper if you aim at top journals, so that could cost around \$600-\$800 or even more (e.g. submission fee for AEA journals is \$300 for non-AEA members and \$200 if you pay for membership).</p>
<p>If you just want to get your work out there without the peer review process, and for free, you can also publish as a pre-print at some network like SSRN.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-27T13:47:49.900Z
"*This is technically all you need to do to get your paper being looked at*" I only remember one paper where no author had an academic affiliation, and that was by Tadelis when he was chief economist at eBay. Tadelis though, has a PhD and has been in academia before (and after) that time. Are you aware of any papers published in a decent journal where no authors had an academic affiliation and a strong prior academic career?
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-27T14:31:06.473Z
@Giskard none come to my mind, but it’s not a requirement. I expect it to be pretty rare but that does not mean it’s a condition for submission or that papers automatically reject people without academic credential. My guess is that it’s extremely rare for a non-academic to waste time trying to publish in peer reviewed journal when there is 0 benefit to it outside academia. If someone just wants to get the word out they can always publish in pre prints like SSRN for free, in regular job there is no extra monetary benefit for publications.
1muflon1
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-27T14:34:32.970Z
Academic affiliation is not a *de jure* condition. SSRN looks like a good alternative, you could mention it in your answer.
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-26T23:32:14.097Z
2024-03-27T16:00:01.060Z
2024-03-27T16:00:01.060Z
1muflon1
<p>I dropped out of a physics degree and do not have a degree. After this, I somehow found myself going from writing marketing software related code to writing quantitative trading code and doing quantitative analysis of the economy in order to facilitate trading decisions. Years later I have dozens of pages of notes and various quantitative results on economics, some of which I think are significant and I have not seen written about. Mainly I have some equations which describe certain behaviors of efficient markets. I would like to write a paper focusing on these equations. A computer science friend who has been an author on a paper said that, at least for computer science, affiliations are not needed per say. Another friend who works in finance said pretty much the same thing. I assume I might need to team up with someone who has a relevant background for the best chance of getting accepted into some type of publication, preferably with affiliations. Can anyone with experience in this process give me advice on how to best proceed?</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-26T22:02:48.267Z
I don't know if [Quant.SE], [Academia.SE] or this SE is the best fit for a Quantitative trading research paper.
Giskard
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-03-26T22:04:12.047Z
Once you have a draft paper you can quickly submit, you should probably consult with some researchers to see if they have heard of a similar result.
Giskard
<macroeconomics><econometrics><mathematical-economics><soft-question><research>
How To Publish a Quantitative Economics Paper Without a Degree or Affiliations
cronius
# How To Publish a Quantitative Economics Paper Without a Degree or Affiliations

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-03-26)

I dropped out of a physics degree and do not have a degree. After this, I somehow found myself going from writing marketing software related code to writing quantitative trading code and doing quantitative analysis of the economy in order to facilitate trading decisions. Years later I have dozens of pages of notes and various quantitative results on economics, some of which I think are significant and I have not seen written about. Mainly I have some equations which describe certain behaviors of efficient markets. I would like to write a paper focusing on these equations. A computer science friend who has been an author on a paper said that, at least for computer science, affiliations are not needed per say. Another friend who works in finance said pretty much the same thing. I assume I might need to team up with someone who has a relevant background for the best chance of getting accepted into some type of publication, preferably with affiliations. Can anyone with experience in this process give me advice on how to best proceed?

**Tags:** macroeconomics, econometrics, mathematical-economics, soft-question, research
> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: I don't know if [Quant.SE], [Academia.SE] or this SE is the best fit for a Quantitative trading research paper.  
> **username_1**: Once you have a draft paper you can quickly submit, you should probably consult with some researchers to see if they have heard of a similar result.  

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## 1 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2024-03-26. Score: 3

Economics journals generally do not require any degree or university affiliation in order to submit an article. Technically anyone can submit an article to a journal and it can be accepted and published.

All you need to do is to follow journal guidelines for formatting and making data and code available for replication. Each journal can have slightly different rules so you need to check journal website prior to submitting. Every journal will have guidelines for submissions. In addition typically you will have to pay submission fee.

This is technically all you need to do to get your paper being looked at by editors and having some chance of getting published.

Most peer reviews are not double blind so of course having someone famous from a top university as a co-author might increase your chances but it's not something that would make or break paper on its own. A bigger advantage of having someone who is seasoned scholar is that they will be able to help you make the paper more readable, i.e. give advice on what needs to be in main body what in appendix, what needs more explanation what is trivial and can be shortened. Also in good journals even excellent papers get often rejected so having someone who can pay for the submission fees from university grant is also helpful. You should expect to get 3-4 rejections even on a good paper if you aim at top journals, so that could cost around \$600-\$800 or even more (e.g. submission fee for AEA journals is \$300 for non-AEA members and \$200 if you pay for membership).

If you just want to get your work out there without the peer review process, and for free, you can also publish as a pre-print at some network like SSRN.

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: "*This is technically all you need to do to get your paper being looked at*" I only remember one paper where no author had an academic affiliation, and that was by Tadelis when he was chief economist at eBay. Tadelis though, has a PhD and has been in academia before (and after) that time. Are you aware of any papers published in a decent journal where no authors had an academic affiliation and a strong prior academic career?  
> **username_2**: @Giskard none come to my mind, but it’s not a requirement. I expect it to be pretty rare but that does not mean it’s a condition for submission or that papers automatically reject people without academic credential. My guess is that it’s extremely rare for a non-academic to waste time trying to publish in peer reviewed journal when there is 0 benefit to it outside academia. If someone just wants to get the word out they can always publish in pre prints like SSRN for free, in regular job there is no extra monetary benefit for publications.  
> **username_1**: Academic affiliation is not a *de jure* condition. SSRN looks like a good alternative, you could mention it in your answer.  

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