Author Checklist

for Accepted Manuscripts

Author’s Final Checklist

The purpose of this checklist is to help authors assemble and format their files so that their accepted articles and supporting materials can be processed quickly and accurately. Please carefully review and check off each of the following items before uploading the final submission. Once completed, the corresponding author should initial the form at the bottom and upload it with the final submission.

General

• Manuscript conforms to the AEEE style guidelines.

• Manuscript is single-column double-spaced (including footnotes), using 12-point Times New Roman font (or similar), left-aligned (ragged-right) with 1" margins and 8" x 11.5" page size. Do not use end-of-line hyphenation features.
• All tables and figures are placed as they are to appear in the submission.
• Appendices are supplied before the references.
• Online supplementary materials and teaching notes are supplied as a separate Word file(s).

Title Page

• The article title does not include any acronyms or abbreviations.
• The title page includes the following information:
• Full title
• Authors’ full names
• Authors’ affiliations, including position title, department (if relevant), and institution. An email address is provided for the corresponding author only.
• Acknowledgments, if any, including
• Conflicts of interest
• Credit, acknowledgment, or thanks for material or informational assistance
• (Optional) Author contributions using the CREDIT system.
• Human subjects approval statement, if necessary, indicating the entity (e.g., office, IRB) providing review and approval, university name, and application/project number. For example, “This study was approved by the Institutional Review Board (IRB) of [Institution Name] (Protocol #[XXXX]). All participants provided informed consent prior to participation.”
• Acknowledgment of all financial support, explicitly indicating the funding agency, grant (or proposal) title, and award number.
• A statement indicating any use of generative AI in the study or writing of the paper. The statement includes purpose for the use; how it impacted findings, conclusions, and/or methods; and how authors personally reviewed and verified the accuracy of content generated by AI or similar tools. See below for more details.
• An abstract of no more than 200 words. Applied Economic Feature submissions are limited to 100 words.
• Up to six keywords or phrases, in alphabetical order, lowercase except for proper nouns, separated by commas
• Up to six JEL codes

Article Text

• The manuscript begins at the top of a new page.
• The introduction includes a heading (“1 Introduction” is acceptable).
• The manuscript follows the AEEE formatting, headings, and general style guidelines (See Section 2.1.3: Submission Preparation).
• To meet website content accessibility requirements, website addresses should be set as embedded links within the text of your article. Do not put URLs in the text of an article. For example, if you directly refer to a website by name, create an embedded link for the website attached to the website name in the text (e.g. Google). Embedded links should be in the default color of blue and be underlined. In addition, you should cite web sites in the reference section when appropriate, as well. 
• Footnotes are double-spaced and use 12-point Times New Roman font or similar. Use the word processor’s footnote controls to place footnotes at the bottom of the page on which they are cited.

Equations and Mathematical Notation

• All but very short mathematical expressions are centered and on a separate line.
• Displayed equations are centered.
• All display equations are labeled on the right margin with consecutive Arabic numerals in parentheses.
• Equations referenced in the text are labeled and the equation number enclosed in parentheses (e.g., “Equation (5),” “Equilibrium (2)”).
• Equations are built using a standard formula editor or the formula editor in Word (preferred).
• Do not use text boxes containing equations formatted in a different program. Under no circumstances should equations use “Symbol” font. These will need to be rewritten by the authors.

Tables and Figures

• Each table/figure contains sufficient information to enable self-explanation, with sufficient notes and labels to allow readers to understand the information in the table with minimal need to reference the text.
• Each table/figure is placed as it are to appear in the submission.
• Each table/figure is referred to in the text, in the proper sequence.
• Each table/figure has a descriptive title.
• Each table/figure is aligned left with no text wrapping.

Tables

• Tables are constructed using Word’s table function. Tables are not included as image files or constructed/aligned using manual tabs or spaces.
• Tables are single-spaced, minimum 10-point font size.
• All table columns have a heading, which is in boldface font and uses title case.
• Each table is consistent in the number of decimal places used. Exceptions can be made for values that would otherwise be rounded to 0.00. In this case, 2–3 significant digits may be reported. (e.g., 0.0012 should be reported as is, not as 0.00.) Use of scientific notation (e.g., 1.2 E–7) is also acceptable.
• Tables contain no vertical lines, shading, or patterns; gridlines are hidden.
• Vertical alignment of cells in tables is centered and, if containing decimals, decimal aligned.
• General explanatory notes: Use the heading “Notes:” and continue on the same line with the first word of the note, in unindented paragraph form. The note paragraph defines the use of asterisks (e.g., *, ** and *** for 10%, 5% and 1% significance levels, respectively) or parentheses (e.g., for standard deviations) where used.
• Sources: If it is necessary to cite a source for a figure, use the heading “Source:” and continue on the same line with the first word of the note. It is not necessary to cite “authors’ calculations” (or similar) as a source. A source note follows general explanatory notes.
• Table footnotes: Use lowercase English letters to attach footnotes to specific items within a table and place the footnotes below the bottom line of the table in (unindented) paragraph form.

Figures

• Authors are encouraged to create figures in color. Authors should think about how their image will look when printed in black and white. Color must not be the only means of conveying information. If color signifies meaning, incorporate additional visual cues like a symbol or text to convey the information. Think about using different line types and shading to differentiate aspects of the figure when needed, as well.
• All text within the image uses Cambria font, not bold or italic. Axis titles are 12-point font, sentence case. Axis labels are 10-point font, lowercase. Legends are either 10- or 12-point font, whichever works better. Figure backgrounds are white, and figures do not have a border.
• In addition to the figures embedded in the document, figures have been supplied as high-quality image files at least 300 dpi (.png, .pdf, or .jpg).
• Figure titles or captions are not embedded within the figure image.
• General explanatory notes: Use the heading “Notes:” and continue on the same line with the first word of the note, in paragraph form.
• Sources: If it is necessary to cite a source for a figure, use the heading “Source:” and continue on the same line with the first word of the note. It is not necessary to cite “authors’ calculations” (or similar) as a source. A source note follows general explanatory notes.
• Alternative Text: To meet Web Content Accessibility requirements (see below for more information), all figures include alternative text produced and verified by the authors. Alternative text is descriptive text that conveys the meaning of a figure. Alternative text is short and to the point; conveys the same meaning as the figure; emphasizes what the reader should take from the figure (e.g., lessons learned); refers to relevant content; does not contain any extra or unnecessary information; and does not repeat data from a figure.

Citations

• All citations in the text are included in the references, and all references are cited in the text.
• Parenthetical citations use “et al.” only with three or more authors.
• Parenthetical citations give year of reference in all cases. For websites, if no date is available, use year of last update or access.
• Parenthetical citations use the author(s) name, followed by the year of publication (Johnson 1992). Multiple parenthetical citations are separated using semicolons (e.g., Johnson 1992; Bekkerman 2003).
• When two or more parenthetical citations are listed, they are ordered first chronologically, then alphabetically if necessary (e.g., “Jones and Perkins 1996; Kader 2001; Smith 2001”).
• When one author or set of authors has more than one publication in a year, “a,” “b,” “c,” etc. are used to distinguish (e.g., “USDA 2017a,” “USDA 2017b,” “USDA 2017a,b,” “Johnson 1996b”).
• Quotations reproduce the original text exactly and include a page number where possible (e.g., Barnes 2025, p. 9). Misspellings in the original work are included as written and followed by “[sic].” Added emphasis is indicated using “[emphasis added].”

Appendices

Short appendices may appear in the main article if they include information that may be needed to understand the assumptions and/or conclusions discussed in the manuscript, but that are too long to include in the main text. Examples include variable description tables, and additional results tables, among others. For Applied Economics Features articles, appendices are limited to 1–2 pages and follow submission guidelines.

• Appendices appear before the references in the main text document.
• Multiple appendices are A, B, etc.
• Each appendix is referenced at least once in the text, in the order in which they appear.
• More extensive materials are included as supplementary materials rather than as appendices.

References

• References follow AEEE reference guidelines. These guidelines can be found on the AEEE website with the submission guidelines. The Editors will ask authors to revise their references if these guidelines are not observed.
• All citations in the text are included in the references, and all references are cited in the text.
• Each reference uses 12-point Times New Roman font, double-spaced, half-inch hanging indent, left-aligned (ragged right).
• The reference list is ordered alphabetically (not chronologically) by authors’ last names. Citations with identical authors are listed chronologically.
• Each item in the reference list includes a DOI (digital object identifiers), where available. Where DOIs are not available, a stable URL is acceptable, if available.
• All “in press” or “forthcoming” references have been updated. Authors are responsible for verification of all references. Citation to a working paper is acceptable only if it includes the information required to publicly access it.
• All web addresses been checked for accuracy.
• Where a web address is given and does not refer to a pdf, a date of access is included.

Supplementary Materials

Supplementary materials are those that may interest and be important to readers but are not necessary to understand the context, assumptions and/or conclusions of the manuscript. Examples include tables with robustness results, survey instruments, experimental protocols, syllabi, examples of homework assignments, among others. Supplementary materials will not be edited and are the responsibility of the author.  The article uses and cites online supplementary material rather than simply telling readers that supplementary materials are available upon request.

• Supplementary materials are combined into one document when possible.
• Supplementary online information is provided as a separate file.
• In the main text, tables and figures are referred to as, e.g., Table S1, Figure S2, or more generally as “the online supplementary materials.”
• The online supplementary material follows the style guidelines for articles.
• The supplementary materials include a title page, with the title of the manuscript (centered) at the top of the page, followed by a list of all authors below the title, separated by a single space. Then below that, please include the title “Supplementary Materials.”

Teaching Notes

Teaching notes are required for case study submissions and strongly encouraged for teaching and educational methods submissions when applicable. Teaching notes will not be edited and are the responsibility of the author.

• Teaching notes are combined into one document when possible.
• All sections of teaching notes are included and completed. See Section 1.3 in the AEEE submission guidelines.
• Teaching notes are supplied as a separate Word file.
• Teaching notes follow the style guidelines for articles.
• Teaching notes include a title page, with the title of the manuscript (centered) at the top of the page, followed by a list of all authors below the title, separated by a single space. Below that, please include the title “Teaching Notes.”

Web Content Accessibility

All articles published by AEEE will be formatted to follow Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Version 2.1, Level AA. Editors will ensure that these requirements are met during production of accepted manuscripts. Authors will be required to provide alternative text for all figures, photos, infographics, and similar materials that have been submitted for an accepted manuscript during the production process. These alternative texts can be provided at the time of final submission.

Accessibility and editing of final submissions of teaching notes, supplemental materials, and similar documents are the responsibility of the author(s). We highly encourage authors to ensure that web content accessibility requirements are met. Editors can help guide this process. A helpful resource is the Section508.gov website. 

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Similar Tools

In general, AEEE will follow the responsible use of generative AI laid out by Wiley. Authors are responsible for documenting all use of generative AI and similar tools, including the purpose for the use; how it impacted finding, conclusions, and/or methods; and how authors personally reviewed and verified that content generated by AI or similar tools. A statement summarizing all uses of generative AI and similar tools must be included on the title page of the manuscript and will be published with acknowledgments with the final artic

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Updated March 18, 2026