Written and maintained by CASRAI Editorial Board
Last updated
The American Economic Review (AER) is the American Economic Association’s general-interest economics journal, and it is conventionally counted among the “top five” journals in the field. This page is a journal profile for researchers deciding whether to submit and for anyone checking a citation: who publishes it, what it costs to submit, what review model it uses, and how to read its metrics without relying on unsourced numbers. Facts below come from the AEA’s own pages, read on 2026-11-08.
What the American Economic Review is
The AEA describes the AER as a general-interest economics journal. It was established in 1911, is published by the American Economic Association, appears in 12 issues a year, and carries ISSN 0002-8282 (print) and 1944-7981 (online). Its journal page links to submission guidelines, reviewer guidelines and the editorial board.
Who runs it and what it covers
The editor is Erzo F.P. Luttmer (Dartmouth College), working with a board of coeditors drawn from institutions in the United States and Europe, including Brown, Berkeley, Harvard, LSE, Michigan, Columbia, Princeton, Oxford, Stanford, Chicago, Wisconsin-Madison, UCLA, KU Leuven and the Paris School of Economics (AEA editors page, read 2026-11-08). Because the journal is general-interest rather than field-specific, papers from any area of economics are in scope. The AEA also publishes related titles, such as American Economic Review: Insights, which are separate journals with their own pages.
Submitting to the AER: what the guidelines require
The submission guidelines (read 2026-11-08) set out the following mechanics. Check the live page before submitting, since fees and policies change.
- Prepare an anonymized manuscript. The AER is running a three-year randomized controlled trial of author-anonymized (“double-blind”) review, so manuscripts omit author names and affiliations and supplementary appendices are anonymized. See double-anonymized peer review for the general model.
- Keep within length. The abstract is 100 words or fewer. The recommended maximum is 40 pages at 11 pt or 45 pages at 12 pt (1.5 spacing, 1-inch margins), including figures, tables, references and appendices. The guidelines note that the average published article runs 35 to 36 typeset pages.
- Package the files. Submit a PDF, ideally under 10 MB, with title and abstract on the first page, plus a separate title-page PDF. Each coauthor submits a separate Disclosure Statement PDF. Chicago author-date is preferred for bibliographies. The AEA Style Guide is optional at submission and required for accepted papers.
- Pay the submission fee through the ScholarOne system by credit card (table below).
- Meet the data and code conditions. Empirical, simulation and experimental papers must provide data, code and computational details before acceptance, following the AEA Data and Code Availability Policy. Field experiments must be registered in the AEA RCT registry; lab experiments need not be. Compare the idea of a data availability statement.
- Pay the page fee if accepted. For papers first submitted on or after 1 February 2024, the publication fee is $15 per typeset page, charged at the proof stage.
Submission fee by membership and country income
| Author status | High-income country | Middle-income country | Low-income country |
|---|---|---|---|
| AEA member | $200 | $100 | $0 |
| Nonmember | $300 | $200 | $0 |
Source: AER submission guidelines, read 2026-11-08. A manuscript rejected without review receives a 50% refund of the fee.
Metrics and ranking: how to read them
Journal metrics are published by third parties, not by the AEA, and they differ by year and by database. That is why figures quoted on aggregator sites often disagree.
| Metric | Who produces it | Where to check |
|---|---|---|
| Journal Impact Factor | Clarivate | Journal Citation Reports (subscription) |
| CiteScore | Elsevier | Scopus |
| SJR | SCImago, from Scopus data | SCImago Journal & Country Rank; see SCImago Journal Rank |
The AER’s own journal page does not state an impact factor, and the AEA pages read for this profile do not publish an acceptance rate, so any specific acceptance percentage you see elsewhere is not an AEA figure. For discipline-level rankings, see the RePEc journal rankings guide and the Financial Times 50 journal list.
Strengths and limits
- Breadth. General-interest scope means one venue for theory, empirical and experimental work.
- Reproducibility requirements. Data and code must be supplied before acceptance for empirical, simulation and experimental papers, and field experiments need registry entries.
- Cost to authors. A submission fee applies to every submission outside low-income-country authors, and accepted papers carry a per-page fee.
- Length. The 40 to 45 page recommended ceiling includes appendices, which affects how much supporting material fits in the main file.
- Review model in transition. The anonymization trial is time-limited, so check current rules at submission.
Related journals and the “top five” convention
“Top five” is a community convention, not an official list kept by any body. The titles most often named are the American Economic Review, Econometrica, the Journal of Political Economy, the Quarterly Journal of Economics and the Review of Economic Studies. For the QJE specifically, see the Quarterly Journal of Economics profile. For background on the field, see what is economics.
FAQ
Is the American Economic Review reputable?
It is published by the American Economic Association, an established professional body, and has run since 1911 with a named editor and coeditor board. Reputation is a judgment, and this page does not issue its own ranking verdicts; use the metrics sources above.
Is the American Economic Review a top journal?
It is conventionally listed among the “top five” economics journals, a convention rather than an official designation. Its metrics are available from Clarivate, Scopus and SCImago and vary by year.
How credible is the American Economic Association?
The AEA is the publisher of the AER and the related AEA journals, and it sets public policies such as the Data and Code Availability Policy and the AEA RCT registry requirement cited above.
What are the big five economics journals?
By convention: American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics and Review of Economic Studies.
What is the American Economic Review impact factor?
The AEA does not publish one on the AER journal page. The Journal Impact Factor is calculated annually by Clarivate in Journal Citation Reports, so look up the current year there rather than relying on aggregator figures, which conflict.
What is the acceptance rate?
The AEA submission guidelines do not give acceptance statistics.
Sources
- American Economic Association, American Economic Review journal page, read 2026-11-08.
- American Economic Association, AER submission guidelines, read 2026-11-08.
- American Economic Association, AER editors, read 2026-11-08.
