Publication Policy

Frequency of Publication:

Pakistan Journal of Economic Studies (PJES) is an open-access peer-reviewed journal published on quarterly basis. PJES is committed to publishing high-quality studies in economics and its subfields. It is indexed in reputed indexations, both nationally and internationally. PJES follows the guidelines and policies of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and HEC guidelines and policies for publishing quality research.

 

Timeline of publication

There are four issues for each volume of the PJES that is published bi-annually. The first issue of each volume is published on 31st March, the second issue is published on 30th June, the third issue is published on 30th September and the fourth issue is published on 31st December each year.

 

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship credit in PJES is given to only persons who made substantial contributions to the work reported in the manuscript (such as technical help, writing and editing assistance, and general support). It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to ensure that any person (s) who do not meet the criteria for authorship must not be listed as an author. Any person who has not substantially contributed to the manuscript but provided some support should be acknowledged in the "Acknowledgements" section after their written permission to be named has been obtained.

Changes in authorship

Any changes in authorship before or after publication must be agreed upon by all authors, including those being added or removed. It is the responsibility of the corresponding author to obtain confirmation from all co-authors and to provide the completed Authorship Change Request form to the editorial management. If a change in authorship is necessary after the publication of the article, this will be amended via a post-publication notice. Any changes in authorship must comply with our criteria for authorship, and requests for significant changes to the authorship list after the article has been accepted may be rejected if clear reasons and evidence of author contributions cannot be provided.

 

Originality and plagiarism policy

Pakistan Journal of Economic Studies (PJES) is published by the Department of Economics, the Islamia University of Bahawalpur. The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan has a membership in Turnitin a database to help the editors verify the originality of submitted manuscripts. All submitted manuscripts are scanned with Turnitin to calculate the similarity index or plagiarism.

Definition of PLAGIARISM

Plagiarism is when an author attempts to pass off someone else works as his or her own. Duplicate publication, sometimes called self-plagiarism, occurs when an author reuses substantial parts of his or her published work without providing the appropriate references. This can range from getting an identical paper published in multiple journals, to salami-slicing, where authors add small amounts of new data to a previous paper.

PLAGIARISM Policy of PJES

  1. Pakistan Journal of Economic Studies (PJES) is committed to promoting and disseminating original research work relating to the field of economic sciences.
  2. Plagiarism comes in several forms for that reason, Plagiarism in any form cannot be tolerated by PJES at any stage as it shows unethical publishing behavior.
  3. All selected manuscripts will be screened for plagiarism by using Turnitin software.
  4. The manuscript in which the plagiarism is detected is handled based on the extent of the plagiarism. A manuscript with less than a 19% similarity index can be accepted for publication.
  5. If the manuscript has plagiarism < 19%, the manuscript will be given an ID, and the manuscript is sent to the review process.
  6. If the manuscript has plagiarism of 19-30%, the manuscript will be given an ID, and the manuscript will be sent back to the author for content revision.
  7. If plagiarism is detected by more than 30%, it is found that the authors are very unlikely to revise the manuscript and submit the revised version. However, authors are welcome to do the required revisions and submit the manuscript as a new submission.

In the case of suspected plagiarism in a published article:

  1. A specific process is followed to manage a case of plagiarism. The PJES follows the guidelines contained in the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) flowcharts (http://publicationethics.org/resources/flowcharts).
  2. The person who advised us of the situation is informed about the process to be followed.
  3. The articles are compared to check the degree of copying.
  4. All Editors of the PJES are informed and asked for their comments.
  5. The corresponding author of the article in question is contacted with documentary evidence of the case of plagiarism and is asked for a response.
  6. If the authors are found guilty of plagiarism
  7. The editor of the journal in which the original plagiarized article was published and the authors of the plagiarized article are informed.
  8. The PJES publishes an official retraction of the paper.
  • The online version of the PJES article is withdrawn from the OJS host site, and
  1. The PJES will not publish any article by any of the authors concerned for 5 years.

 

Peer-review policy

Pakistan Journal of Economic Studies (PJES) follows a double-blind peer-review process. Where the reviewers have not shared any details of the authors such as their names or affiliations and review reports are also shared anonymously with the authors.

The virtue of a double-blind peer-review system is that it ensures the manuscript's evaluation is purely based on the quality of the content. It enables reviewers to assess the manuscripts in an unbiased manner and let them look if the content is original, valid, and has some significance.

Generally, the manuscripts are scientifically reviewed by at least two experts. They assess if the submitted article is sound, comprehensive, and has no replication of other published works. If reviewers recommend the manuscript as suitable for publication in review reports editorial team reaches a final decision.

Article-processing/publication fee

Pakistan Journal of Economic Studies (PJES) is an open-access journal that provides free to access articles online. Journal does not charge any kind of fee for manuscript submission, processing, and publication. Therefore, the authors do not pay any Article Publication Fee (APF), or Article Processing Charges (APC). Authors also do not pay any charges to cover the costs of desk review, peer review, management, and professional production of the article (s) in any format and dissemination of published manuscripts to archives and/or databases. All the expenses are borne by the Department of Economics, the Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Pakistan.

There is no fee for rejected manuscripts, submission surcharge, and no fee based on the length of the content of an article, figures, or supplementary data.

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

The editorial committee is responsible to avoid any conflict of interest in the research publications that may affect the interpretation of results and assessment by the reviewers. In case of any potential conflict of interest, the author (s) shall provide a clear statement about bearing the responsibility. They shall disclose the possible conflicts of interest that can influence the decision about the publication of the manuscript.

Manuscripts will not be considered by the editorial board for review if competing interests arise from the collaborative or competitive connections of any of the author (s) or relevant institutions. It is desired that all contributors shall disclose conflicting interests while submitting the manuscript. If there is any such revelation after the research is published, corrections or expressions of interest and retraction will be issued where needed.

Correction and Retraction Policy

Corrections of Research Articles

If there is any error reported by the authors after the publishing of the manuscript, it must be reported to the editorial team through the corresponding author with a description of all the details of the error and the required correction. Corrections required by authors (corrigenda) and corrections for the publisher’s errors (errata) are made without any charges to the author (s). Any corrections that may affect the research outcomes, their interpretation, and/or implications are considered only after a thorough review by the editors.

Retraction of Research Articles

A Retraction is a declaration that an article should not be regarded as part of the scientific literature published by PJES.  It aims to correct the literature and alert the readers about unreliable, seriously flawed, or erroneous content, data, findings, and/or conclusions. Such content may be due to research misconduct or mistakes. Editors at PJES, through the retraction policy, commit to correcting the literature and ensuring research integrity rather than punishing the authors.

Retraction Policy

PJES adheres to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) retraction guidelines. The editorial committee will issue a retraction notice if there is clear evidence about a published article that:

1. The findings of the research are faulty or unreliable, either due to a major error in calculation, data collection, or experimental conduct,

2. The results are based on the fabrication or falsification of data, figures, and/or literature.

3. It constitutes severe plagiarism or higher plagiarism than the maximum limit as required in PJES policy for Plagiarism and Screening.

4.  The findings have been previously published elsewhere without proper attribution to previous sources or disclosure to the editor, permission to republish, or justification (ie, cases of redundant or multiple publications). 

5. It contains any material or uses data without explicit authorization.

6. The copyright policy of PJES has been infringed.

7. The research has adopted, reported, or suggested some harmful or unethical practices.

8. It has been published solely based on a compromised or manipulated peer review process.

9. The author(s) have failed to disclose a major conflict of interest that, in the view of the editor, would have unduly affected interpretations of the work or recommendations by editors and peer reviewers.

10. The content of the article has legal issues like libel, breach of privacy, illegality, etc. 

Applicability of Retraction

Retraction policy for the published manuscripts is applicable if there is a substantial undermining of the research conduct in terms of ethics, errors in analysis, and/or reporting of the study. The article will be marked as retracted in the issue where it was originally published. However, the retraction statement will be linked in both directions with the PDF version of the article. This statement typically includes assent or dissent from the author about the misconduct or error. That must be signed and submitted by the author(s) to the editor of PJES.

In some cases, the editorial board reserves the right to remove the published articles from the journal’s online issues and platforms. Some of such exceptions may be if.

  1. The content is proved to be unlawful, defamatory, and trespasses on a third party’s intellectual property, privacy, or any other legal rights.
  2. An order requiring the removal of the article, or its content is issued or is likely to be issued by the court or legal authorities of the state.
  3. Content if acted upon by the end-users of research outcomes is found to pose immediate or serious risks to health.

It must be noted that the metadata and bibliographic data of the manuscript will be retained by PJES. This data will be attached with the removal statement and an explanation of the reason (s) for removal. However, the removal may be temporary or permanent.

Policy and principles on research data

Publish with PJES, helps authors to get the credit of their and encourage to make their data accessible and discoverable for their peers. It encourages and supports researchers to share or link the data where suitable.

 

  1. PJES enables researchers to stay in control of how and when their data is accessed and used by understanding the value of efforts made in creating the research data.
  2. PJES welcomes standardizing and aligning the author data guidelines where possible.
  3. PJES guides authors on data sharing, storing, enabling optimal access, and reusing permissions as per authors’ willingness.
  4. It is encouraged for authors to enable two-way data linking through some standard identifiers. So that the original creation and any value addition are recognized respectively.

Contribution of each author with details

PJES follows the authorship contribution policy as per Committee Of Publication Ethics (COPE) guidelines. Here is a brief of the contributions expected by each author.

 

Author

The author is referred to as the creator or originator of an idea or the individual or individuals who develop and bring to fruition the article that disseminates intellectual or creative works. The author has significant privileges, responsibilities, and legal rights as per academic standards. It also forms the basis for rewards and career advancement. Authors are accountable for following all the guidelines and policies of PJES. At a minimum, authors should guarantee that they have participated in creating the work as presented and that they have not violated any other author’s legal rights (e.g., copyright) in the process.

Co-author

A co-author will be a person who has made a significant contribution to the manuscript submitted at PJES. They also share responsibility and accountability for the results. Declaring a person as co-author means that he/she has

  • Made a significant contribution to the work reported. That could be in the conception, study design, execution, acquisition of data, analysis, and interpretation, or in all these areas.
  • Drafted or written, substantially revised, or critically reviewed the article.
  • Agreed on the submission for potential publication to the PJES.
  • Reviewed and agreed on all versions of the article before submission, during revision, the final version accepted for publication, and any significant changes introduced at the proofing stage.

Corresponding Author

If there is more than one author who submits an article to PJES. It is required to choose one person to be the corresponding author. This person will handle all correspondence about the article and sign the publishing agreement on behalf of all the authors. The corresponding author is also responsible for liaising with co-authors regarding any editorial queries, and to act on behalf of all co-authors in any communication about the article through submission, peer review, production, and after publication. The corresponding author is required to ensure that all the authors’ contact details are correct. Authors must all agree on the order in which their names will appear in the article.