Learnings From 1000 Rejections

Abstract

The Review of Finance aimed to significantly increase its standards over my 6 years as managing editor and 1 year as editor. To comply with these new standards, I had to reject nearly 1000 manuscripts. This paper aims to use these rejections constructively by distilling common reasons for rejection to guide future research. They are divided into three categories: contribution, execution, and exposition. Beyond extracts from decision letters that give reasons for rejection, this paper also shares excerpts that shed light on the editorial process, such as how an editor weighs up feedback to reach a decision, as well as emails to authors outside formal letters in response to queries on the process.