Submissions

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Author Guidelines

Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA) will consider and accept submissions of complete working papers within the four ERSA Research Programmes: Fiscal and Monetary Policy; Trade, Industrial and Competition Policy; Environmental Policy; and Human Capital Policy. We are particularly interested in how these policy areas influence economic growth and productivity in Southern African countries.

  • Accepted submissions will be subject to the editorial committee’s review. Authors may be requested to supply data and code. Confidentiality of such data will be ensured.
  • ERSA will not accept submissions that have already been accepted in a journal publication. Copyright responsibilities vest in the author(s) of the paper.
  • Authors must obtain permission for all included materials and ensure all listed authors consent. Research must meet ethical standards.
  • Submissions may be desk-rejected if they don't meet quality standards. Ensure a clear study design, well-articulated research argument, concise title, and standalone abstract. Please adhere to the Working Paper Series Formatting and Style Guidelines, outlined below.

Submission Preparation Checklist

Please ensure your submission meets the following requirements:

  • The manuscript adheres to the Working Paper Series' Formatting and Style Guidelines as set out below. 
  • All required article components are included (Article Text, Title Page and Research Results).
  • Optional components are provided as applicable.
  • The manuscript has been proofread for spelling and grammatical errors.
  • All citations are properly formatted and referenced (See Formatting and Style Guidelines below).
  • ERSA uses a double-blind review process meaning that the identities of the reviewer and author are hidden.  Therefore,  before converting your document into a PDF, ensure names are removed from the document and that all identifiable metadata is also removed using the following steps:
    • For Word Users: 
      File --> Info --> check for Issues --> Inspect Document -->Document Properties and Personal information --> Inspect --> Remove All
    • For Word Users on Mac: Tools --> Protect Document --> Tick: Remove personal information from this file on save
    • For Latex Users:
      Ensure that the \author{} command in your LaTeX file is either empty or removed entirely.
  • To honour the double-blind review process, please upload a Title Page that is separate to your Working Paper manuscript. 

Formatting and Style Guidelines

  • Click here to download the ERSA Working Paper Templates. Note both the Title Page and Working Paper Template can be found here.
  • Title Page: Please include the manuscript title, authors and their affiliations. We recommend using the ERSA Title Page Template. 
  • Working Paper Manuscript Text: We recommend using the Working Paper Template, or following style in Latex: sw20nhej.cst 
  • ERSA Working Papers require Harvard Referencing (view Harvard Referencing Guide). We recommend using Reference Management Software, such as Mendeley, to assist with referencing
  • Save documents as a .pdf using the following naming convention:
    • For Working Paper:
      First 2 words of title_Submission Date (dd mmm yyyy)_article.pdf
      eg. The macroeconomic_22 Nov 2024_article.pdf
    • For Title Page:
      First 2 words of the title_Submission Date (dd mmm yyyy).pdf
      eg The macroeconomic_22 Nov 2024_title.pdf

Working Paper Series

Section default policy

Copyright Notice

By submitting your manuscript to Economic Research Southern Africa (ERSA), you agree to the following terms:

  • The authors retain copyright of their work. 
  • The article will be licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence, allowing others to share and adapt the work, provided the original author and source are credited.
  • Authors are responsible for ensuring that their submission complies with copyright laws and that necessary permissions have been obtained for any copyrighted material included in the submission.

Privacy Statement

The names and email addresses entered in this working paper series site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this working paper series and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.