Editorial and Publishing Policies

Pakistan Economic and Social Review (PESR) is a double-blind peer-reviewed, open-access academic journal published biannually by School of Economics, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. The journal publishes empirical research articles across economics and related fields including Macroeconomics, Economic Development, Public Finance, International Economics, Population Economics, Applied Econometrics and Institutional Economics. 

PESR is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics, research integrity, editorial independence, transparency, and accountability. Its editorial and publishing policies are informed by the ethical guidance of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing, and the relevant policies and requirements of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan. These policies establish the responsibilities and procedures that guide the journal's editorial decisions, peer-review process, publication practices, and responses to ethical concerns.

These policies apply to all participants in the journal's publishing process, including the Editor-in-Chief, editors, editorial board members, reviewers, authors, and publisher. All parties are expected to uphold the principles of fairness, confidentiality, impartiality, and responsible scholarly communication. The policies should be read alongside the journal's Aims and Scope, Author Guidelines, and submission requirements. They are implemented in accordance with applicable Pakistani law, HEC regulations, and the institutional policies of School of Economics, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan.

1. Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

PESR adheres to the ethical publishing requirements of the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan, developed with reference to COPE guidelines, and to the joint COPE/DOAJ/OASPA/ Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing. This statement sets out the ethical obligations of the Editorial Team, authors, and reviewers, and is the umbrella policy under which the more detailed policies in this manual (Authorship, Peer Review, Data Integrity, Research Ethics, Corrections and Retraction, Complaints and Misconduct) operate.

1.1 Duties of the Editorial Board

• The Editorial team is responsible and committed to establishing and maintaining the quality and integrity of the journal.
• The Editorial team has sole authority to accept or reject any submission, having regard to the journal's publishing policies and the scholarly quality of the submission, independent of commercial interest.
• The Editorial team ensures every eligible article undergoes double-blind peer review as described in Section 12 (Peer Review Policy).
• An Editor with a conflict of interest concerning a submission (e.g., co-authorship, institutional affiliation, personal relationship, or competing research) will not handle that manuscript; it is reassigned to another Editor or a guest editor, per Section 5.
• Editorial decisions are based solely on the submission's academic merit — originality, significance, validity, and clarity — and disregard the author's gender, race, ethnicity, religion or belief, cultural background, political affiliation, disability, seniority, or institutional affiliation.
• The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for appointing and, where necessary, removing members of the Editorial Board and Advisory Board, as described in Section 2.
• The Editor ensures every submission is screened for plagiarism and textual overlap in accordance with Section 10 (Plagiarism Policy) before it proceeds to review.
• The Editor acknowledges submissions OJS automatically response same day and responds to subsequent author queries within a reasonable timeframe.
• The Editor maintains the confidentiality of manuscript content and all communications relating to it prior to publication and does not disclose information about a submission to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, editorial staff, and — where appropriate — the publisher.
• The Editor is responsible for evaluating and acting upon reports of possible research or publication misconduct, and for making corrections, expressions of concern, or retractions in line with Section 14 (Corrections and Retraction Policy), regardless of whether the article is in online-first or final issue form.
• The Editorial team will not use unpublished information from a submitted manuscript for personal research or gain without the explicit written consent of the author.

1.2 Duties of Authors

• Authorship and contribution must be attributed accurately in line with Section 3 (Authorship and Contribution Policy); the corresponding author is responsible for ensuring all listed co-authors have approved the final manuscript and agree to its submission.
• Authors are fully responsible for the originality, authenticity, and academic integrity of their submission.
• It is the author's responsibility to ensure the manuscript contains sufficient detail and citation of sources (Section 9) to allow others to verify or reproduce the analysis.
• A manuscript submitted to PESR must not be submitted concurrently to another journal until the corresponding author has been informed of a final decision (rejection or withdrawal) by PESR.
• If questions arise about the accuracy, validity, or integrity of the research during or after review, authors must provide the underlying data, materials, or documentation to the Editor upon request (Section 6, Section 7).
• Authors must disclose all financial and non-financial conflicts of interest at submission (Section 5).
• The review process typically takes one to three months, though this may extend depending on reviewer availability and revision cycles; authors may contact the Editor at any time for a status update.
• Before a manuscript proceeds to peer review, the corresponding author, on behalf of all authors, signs an undertaking confirming that the manuscript will not be withdrawn without substantive justification once review has commenced. A withdrawal made in breach of this undertaking may result in restrictions on future submissions and, where misconduct is suspected, referral to the author's affiliated institution (Section 13).
• Where a submission is rejected, the author retains the right to submit the work, revised or unrevised, to another venue.
• Where revisions are requested, authors must submit a point-by-point response to reviewer and editor comments alongside the revised manuscript.
• An author who disagrees with an editorial decision may appeal in writing to the Editor-in-Chief, following the process set out in Section 13 (Appeals, Complaints, and Misconduct Policy).

1.3 Duties of Reviewers

• Reviewers who accept an invitation to review for PESR undertake to complete the evaluation professionally, objectively, and without personal criticism.
• Reviewers must treat the manuscript as a confidential document throughout and after the review process, and must not share it, discuss its content, or retain copies beyond the review period.
• Reviewers must declare any conflict of interest and decline the assignment where one exists (Section 5).
• Reviewers must complete and submit their review within the agreed timeframe or notify the Editor promptly of any likely delay and a revised timeline.
• Reviewers must alert the Editor to any substantial similarity between the submission and previously published work, and to any suspected plagiarism, data fabrication, or other integrity concern.
• Reviewers acknowledge that the final publication decision rests solely with the Editor / Editor-in-Chief, irrespective of the reviewer's own recommendation.

2. Editorial Team and Governance Policy

PESR is governed by an Editorial Team operating under the authority of the Editor-in-Chief and the publisher, School of Economics, University of the Punjab, Lahore Pakistan. This policy sets out governance structure, composition, appointment, and accountability, matters that DOAJ, Scopus, and Web of Science all evaluate directly when assessing a journal for indexing.

2.1 Governance Structure

• Publisher: School of Economics, University of the Punjab, Lahore Pakistan, which owns PESR and provides institutional and financial support, but does not influence individual editorial decisions.
• Editor-in-Chief: holds overall responsibility for the journal's editorial policy, scholarly quality, and compliance with this manual; chairs the Editorial Team.
• Editor / Managing Editor: handle day-to-day manuscript processing, reviewer coordination, and correspondence with authors.
• Associate Editor(s): support the Editor(s) and Managing Editor in manuscript handling and reviewer coordination within a specific disciplinary or thematic area.
• Editorial Board: national and international scholars with a high-impact research profile in their field, representing the journal's disciplinary breadth, who advise on editorial policy and journal development where needed.
• Advisory Board: senior scholars who provide strategic guidance and help extend the journal's disciplinary and geographic reach.

2.2 Appointment, Terms, and Removal

• The Editor-in-Chief is appointed by School of Economics, University of the Punjab, Lahore Pakistan in line with the University's governing regulations for its journals.
• The Editor-in-Chief appoints members of the Editorial Team, Editorial Board and Advisory Board based on scholarly standing, disciplinary expertise, and capacity to contribute to the journal, and may change board composition as needed to maintain quality and disciplinary balance.
• A team member may resign at any time by written notice, and may be removed by the Editor-in-Chief for sustained inactivity, undisclosed conflicts of interest, or conduct inconsistent with this manual.

2.3 Composition and Transparency

PESR publishes the full names, institutional affiliations, and (where available) ORCID iDs of the Editor-in-Chief and all Editorial/Advisory Board members on the journal website, in line with DOAJ's transparency requirements.

The journal aims for an Editorial Board that reflects both the disciplinary breadth of the journal and a diversity of national and international affiliation, rather than being confined to a single institution or country.

Editorial Board members disclose their affiliations accurately (Section 4, Affiliation Policy) and update the journal promptly if their institutional affiliation changes.

2.4 Editorial Oversight and Policy Review

Editorial matters and policy revisions are handled by the Editor-in-Chief in consultation with relevant members of the Editorial Team, as appropriate

The journal's editorial policies are reviewed periodically and revised when necessary to reflect developments in scholarly publishing standards, publication ethics, and applicable institutional requirements.

3. Authorship and Contribution Policy

PESR determines authorship using criteria consistent with COPE's guidance on authorship and contributorship and requires a formal contribution statement for every accepted manuscript. This policy is designed to prevent honorary (gift) authorship, ghost authorship, and authorship disputes, all of which are core COPE and DOAJ concerns.

3.1 Criteria for Authorship

An individual qualifies as an author of an PESR submission only if they meet all four of the following criteria:

Made a substantial intellectual contribution to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data;

Drafted the manuscript or revised it critically for important intellectual content;

Approved the final version to be published; and

Agree to be accountable for all aspects of the work, including ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Individuals who contributed to the research but do not meet all four criteria — for example, those who provided funding, general supervision, technical assistance, translation, proofreading, or data collection without analytical input — do not qualify as authors and should instead be recognised in an Acknowledgements section, with their permission.

3.2 Corresponding Author

One author is designated as the corresponding author and serves as the primary point of contact with the Editor throughout submission, review, and post-publication.

The corresponding author warrants that all listed co-authors meet the authorship criteria in Section 1, have reviewed and approved the final submitted and revised versions, and have agreed to the order of authorship.

The corresponding author is responsible for keeping co-authors informed of the manuscript's status and for communicating any correction, retraction, or complaint to all co-authors.

3.3 Contribution (CRediT-Style) Statement

Every accepted manuscript must include a contribution statement identifying each author's role, using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy (CRediT) as a reference framework. Authors should select the roles that reflect their actual contribution from among the following: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal Analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing – Original Draft, Writing – Review & Editing, Visualization, Supervision, Project Administration, Funding Acquisition

An author may hold more than one role, and a role may be shared by more than one author. The contribution statement is published alongside the article and is separate from the acknowledgements, which cover non-author contributors (Section 1.2, Duties of Authors)

3.4 Changes to Authorship

Any request to add, remove, or reorder authors after initial submission must be made in writing to the Editor by the corresponding author, stating the reason for the change.

Such a request must be signed (or separately confirmed by email) by every author, including any author being added or removed.

Updated Authors' Information and Declaration Form has to be submitted duly signed by all authors.

Requests to change authorship after acceptance or publication are treated as a correction request and are handled under Section 14 (Corrections and Retraction Policy); unresolved authorship disputes may be referred to the authors' institution(s) in line with COPE guidance.

3.5 Prohibited Practices

Ghost authorship (omitting a person who meets the authorship criteria) and gift/honorary authorship (including a person who does not meet the criteria, e.g. solely for seniority or institutional courtesy) are not permitted.

Authorship may not be bought, sold, gifted, or transferred, and manuscript-brokering or “authorship-for-sale” arrangements will be treated as serious misconduct under Section 13.

4. Affiliation Policy

Accurate author and reviewer affiliation is required for transparency, for correct indexing in bibliographic databases, and to allow the Editorial Board to properly assess conflicts of interest (Section 5).

4.1 Author Affiliation

Each author must list the institutional affiliation(s) at which the reported research was substantively conducted, given as: department, institution/organisation, city, and country.

Where an author's affiliation has changed between the time the research was conducted and the time of submission or publication, both the affiliation at the time of the research and the current affiliation may be listed, clearly distinguished (e.g., using a note such as “present address”).

Independent researchers, or authors without a current institutional affiliation, may list their city and country of residence and should indicate their independent status.

Authors are strongly encouraged to provide an ORCID iD for each author, to disambiguate identity and ensure correct attribution across databases including Scopus and Web of Science.

Honorary, courtesy, or aspirational affiliations that do not reflect a genuine institutional relationship at the relevant time must not be listed; misrepresentation of affiliation is treated as a form of misconduct under Section 13.

4.2 Editorial Board and Reviewer Affiliation

Editorial and Advisory Board members' affiliations are published on the journal website (Section 3) and must be kept current; members must notify the Editorial Office of any change.

Reviewers' affiliations are recorded for conflict-of-interest screening (Section 5) and are not published against individual review reports, consistent with the confidentiality of double-blind review (Section 12).

5. Conflict of Interest Policy

A conflict of interest arises when professional judgment concerning a primary interest, such as the validity of research or the fairness of an editorial decision, could reasonably be influenced by a secondary interest, such as financial gain, career advancement, institutional loyalty, or personal relationships.

5.1 Disclosure Requirements

Authors must submit a conflict-of-interest statement at the time of submission, disclosing funding sources, financial relationships, and any personal or professional relationship that could be perceived to influence the research or its interpretation. This statement is published with the final article.

Editors and reviewers must disclose any conflict of interest relating to a manuscript before agreeing to handle or review it, including co-authorship within the past three years, current or prospective collaboration, close personal relationship, direct competition, or financial interest in the outcome.

5.2 Managing Conflicts

Where an Editor has a conflict of interest, the manuscript is reassigned to another Editor or a guest editor with no such conflict.

Where a reviewer has a conflict of interest, they decline the invitation and a substitute reviewer is assigned.

Every published article carries its authors' conflict-of-interest statement (or a statement that none exists), together with the funding/source-of-support statement required under Section 16.

6. Research Ethics, Human Subjects, and Data Availability Policy

PESR requires that all research involving human participants, personal data, or identifiable communities be conducted and reported in accordance with recognised ethical standards. This policy reflects COPE guidance on research ethics and DOAJ's expectation that journals publish a clear ethics-approval and data-availability policy.

6.1 Ethical Approval

Empirical studies involving human participants (surveys, interviews, focus groups, experiments, ethnographic fieldwork, or secondary analysis of identifiable data) must have received approval from an appropriate Institutional Review Board (IRB) or Research Ethics Committee prior to data collection.

The manuscript's Methods section must state the name of the approving body and the approval reference number, or, where formal ethics review was not required under the author's institutional rules, must explain why and describe the ethical safeguards applied.

Studies involving vulnerable populations (children, prisoners, refugees, persons with reduced capacity to consent) require particular justification of the ethical safeguards used and, where relevant, assent/consent procedures for legal guardians.

6.2 Informed Consent

Authors must confirm that informed consent was obtained from all human participants (or their legal guardians), including consent to publish anonymised quotations, case material, or identifying details where applicable.

Where a participant is identifiable in text, image, or case description, explicit consent to publish that specific material must be obtained and documented; the default position, absent such consent, is that identifying detail must be removed or sufficiently disguised.

For research using publicly available data (e.g., social media posts, public records, archival material), authors should address the relevant platform terms of use and any applicable data-protection or privacy expectations, even where individual consent is not obtainable.

6.3 Confidentiality and Risk of Harm

Authors must take reasonable steps to protect the confidentiality and safety of research participants and communities, including in politically or socially sensitive research contexts.

Authors must disclose and justify any research design involving deception, covert observation, or withholding of information from participants, together with the ethical review that authorized it.

6.4 Data Availability Statement

Every empirical article must include a Data Availability Statement indicating where the underlying data can be accessed, or explaining why data cannot be shared (e.g., ethical or legal restrictions, third-party ownership, participant confidentiality).

Authors are encouraged, where ethically and legally possible, to deposit data, codebooks, interview guides, or survey instruments in a recognised repository (e.g., Harvard Dataverse, UK Data Service, OSF, or a comparable disciplinary repository) and to cite the dataset with a persistent identifier (DOI).

Where full data cannot be shared, authors should indicate what a bona fide researcher could access on reasonable request and through what process.

6.5 Raw Data on Request

If a question arises about the accuracy, provenance, or validity of research during review or after publication, the Editor may require the author(s) to supply raw data, codebooks, transcripts, or other supporting material, subject to applicable confidentiality and ethical constraints. Failure to provide requested material without adequate justification may result in rejection, correction, or retraction under Section 14.

7. Data Integrity Policy

Data integrity is treated by PESR as a core condition of publication, consistent with COPE's guidance on fabrication and falsification. This policy applies to quantitative and qualitative data alike.

7.1 Prohibited Practices

Fabrication: inventing data, findings, or results that were not generated by the reported research.

Falsification: manipulating research materials, equipment, processes, or data, or omitting data or results, such that the research is not accurately represented.

Selective or misleading reporting of results, including undisclosed post-hoc changes to hypotheses, variables, or analytical models presented as though pre-specified.

Inappropriate image or figure manipulation (e.g., altering, duplicating, or splicing images or charts in a way that misrepresents the underlying data).

Undisclosed use of synthetic or AI-generated data presented as empirical data.

7.2 Author Obligations

Authors must accurately represent their research findings and must not present fabricated, falsified, plagiarized, or manipulated data.

Authors must retain raw data and analytical records for a reasonable period after publication (recommended: a minimum of five years, or as required by the funder or institution, whichever is longer) and provide them to the Editor on reasonable request (Section 5).

Any honest error discovered by the authors after submission or publication must be reported promptly to the Editor for correction (Section 14).

7.3 Verification and Consequences

Where the Editorial Team has reasonable grounds to suspect fabrication, falsification, or manipulation, it will request supporting materials, may consult independent statistical or subject-matter reviewers, and will follow COPE flowcharts for suspected data fabrication/falsification.

Confirmed data-integrity violations will result in rejection (pre-publication) or correction/retraction (post-publication) under Section 14, and may be reported to the author's institution under Section 13.

8. Use of Tables and Figures, and Registration of Trials and Systematic Reviews

8.1 Tables and Figures

Tables and figures must be original to the submission unless reproduced with permission; reproduced material must be clearly credited to its original source, with evidence of permission from the copyright holder provided to the Editor where the source is not open-licensed.

Each table and figure must be numbered sequentially, carry a concise descriptive title, and be referenced in the main text; figures should include clear axis labels, units, and a legend sufficient to be understood independent of the body text.

Data underlying figures (e.g., the values behind a chart) should be consistent with any data shared under the Data Availability Statement (Section 4) and must not be selectively presented in a way that misrepresents the underlying results (Section 7).

Authors must not present the same data redundantly in both a table and a figure without clear justification, and must not manipulate images or charts in a way that alters their scientific meaning.

Scanned, photographed, or screenshotted tables/figures must be at least 300 DPI at final publication size (600 DPI for line art or text-heavy figures) and, where possible, provided as editable source files.

8.2 Registration of Trials, Interventions, and Systematic Reviews

While PESR primarily publishes social science research, it recognises that some submissions may involve randomized or quasi-experimental interventions, field experiments, or systematic reviews/meta-analyses. For these submission types:

Randomized controlled trials and other prospective intervention studies should be registered before participant enrolment in a publicly accessible trial registry (e.g., the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform, ClinicalTrials.gov, or the AEA RCT Registry for economics/policy field experiments), and the registration number must be reported in the manuscript.

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses should be registered, where a relevant registry exists (e.g., PROSPERO for reviews with a health or policy-outcomes dimension), and should follow a recognised reporting standard such as PRISMA, with the completed checklist submitted alongside the manuscript.

Authors of a trial or systematic review who did not prospectively register the study must disclose this fact and explain the reason in the manuscript; the Editor will assess this transparently as part of the review, without an automatic bar on publication for observational or exploratory work where registration is not standard practice in the sub-field.

For qualitative systematic reviews (e.g., meta-ethnography, thematic synthesis), authors should follow an appropriate reporting framework (e.g., ENTREQ) and clearly document their search strategy, inclusion/exclusion criteria, and synthesis method.

9. Crediting and Citing Sources Policy

Accurate, complete citation is fundamental to scholarly integrity and to PESR's discoverability in citation-based indexes such as Scopus and Web of Science. This policy applies alongside Section 10 (Plagiarism Policy).

9.1 Citation Standard

PESR follows the APA (American Psychological Association) referencing style for in-text citation and the reference list; authors should consult the current edition of the APA Publication Manual and the PESR Author Guidelines.

Every factual claim, direct quotation, dataset, theoretical framework, or method drawn from another source must be cited at the point of use, not only in a general reference list.

Direct quotations must be placed in quotation marks (or block-quoted, per APA convention) with a precise page or paragraph reference; paraphrased material must still be cited to its source even where no direct quotation is used.

9.2 Appropriate Crediting

Authors must cite the original source of ideas, frameworks, methods, and data, rather than a secondary source, wherever the original is available to them.

Where a study's design, structure, or argument has been substantially inspired by earlier work, that influence must be explicitly acknowledged rather than left to be inferred.

Authors must credit software, datasets, translation assistance, and research tools (including generative AI tools, per Section 11) that materially contributed to the work.

9.3 Citation Integrity

Editors and reviewers must not require authors to add citations to the editor's, reviewer's, or journal's own publications where these are not scholarly necessary (“coercive citation”); such requests are treated as a form of misconduct under Section 13.

Authors must not engage in citation stacking, citation cartels, or excessive self-citation intended to inflate citation metrics rather than to support the argument.

Reference lists must be accurate and verifiable; authors are responsible for checking that cited sources say what is attributed to them and that DOIs/URLs resolve correctly.

10. Plagiarism Policy

All submissions to PESR must be free of plagiarism. Authors must declare at submission that their work is original.

10.1 Screening

PESR screens every submission for textual overlap using Turnitin, in accordance with the applicable HEC Pakistan guidelines, applied consistently alongside PESR's own editorial evaluation.

Submissions exceeding the journal's acceptable similarity threshold (Similarity Index 19% [4% from a single source]) or containing substantial unattributed overlap, regardless of the overall percentage, are returned to the author or rejected without further review.

Suspected undisclosed or inappropriate use of AI is assessed by the editorial team. AI-detection results are treated as preliminary indicators and are not considered conclusive evidence of misconduct or used as the sole basis for an editorial decision.

Where a manuscript overlaps with content previously submitted to an institutional repository as part of a thesis or dissertation, the author is responsible for submitting a certificate of originality confirming the work is original, along with a brief statement explaining why the material is being submitted to the journal despite its prior repository deposit.

10.2 What Constitutes Plagiarism

Copying content — text, data, figures, tables, or illustrations — from another source or article without attribution to the original source.

Reusing text copied from another source without placing it in quotation marks and citing the source; even properly cited, lengthy verbatim reuse of text is discouraged and should be paraphrased.

Adopting a study's design or a manuscript's structure or language from a prior work without explicit citation of that work.

Self-plagiarism: the intentional or unintentional reuse of an author's own previously published or copyrighted material without citing the original source and, where relevant, without regard to the original publisher's copyright.

10.3 Consequence

Submissions found to contain plagiarism are rejected directly, without further review or right of appeal on that specific finding, save that an author may make written representations to the Editor if they believe the similarity finding is factually mistaken (e.g., a false match against their own prior, properly cited work).

11. Artificial Intelligence (AI) Policy

This policy offers guidance to authors, editors, and reviewers on the use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, consistent with COPE's position on AI in publishing and the Higher Education Commission's Framework on Use of Generative AI (GenAI) Tools in Higher Education Institutes. As AI tools continue to evolve, this policy will be updated as needed. PESR supports the responsible use of generative AI tools that respect high standards of data security, confidentiality, and copyright protection, in contexts such as: (i) idea generation; (ii) language improvement; (iii) interactive online search and literature-review classification; and (iv) data-coding assistance.

PESR is committed to ensuring authors, editors, and reviewers are aware of the risks of AI use, including: (i) inaccuracy and bias; (ii) lack of attribution and proper referencing of material used; (iii) confidentiality and intellectual-property risks; and (iv) unintended uses. The journal's AI policy aligns with COPE's position statement on authorship and AI tools.

11.1 Authors

Authors are responsible for ensuring that the content of their submissions meets the required standards of rigorous scientific and scholarly assessment, originality, research and validation, and integrity of content, and that the work is genuinely created by the author. Authors choosing to use AI tools are expected to do so responsibly, including reviewing AI-generated outputs to confirm content accuracy and to add any necessary referencing or attrib3ution. Authors are also required to declare the use of Generative AI in Authors’ Information and Declaration Form along with the other statements, at the time of submission of manuscript.

Authors must clearly acknowledge any use of generative AI tools in a statement that includes: the full name of the tool used (with version number), how it was used, and the reason for its use.

For submissions, this statement must be included in the Methods section (or the Introduction section, where no Methods section exists).

PESR does not permit the listing of an AI tool as an author, as such tools cannot assume responsibility and accountability for the content, consistent with Section 3.1.

11.2 Editors and Peer Reviewers

Editors and peer reviewers for PESR are not permitted to use generative AI tools in connection with manuscript handling or review, as this may pose a risk to confidentiality, proprietary rights, and data, including personally identifiable information. Editors and reviewers must not upload files, images, or information from unpublished manuscripts into generative AI tools. Failure to comply with this policy may infringe upon the rightsholder's intellectual property and will be treated as a breach of the confidentiality obligations in Sections 1.1 and 12.4.

12. Peer Review Policy

PESR operates a rigorous double-blind (double-anonymised) peer review process for all research articles and review articles, consistent with COPE's Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers and DOAJ's editorial quality criteria. Book reviews are subject to editorial (not external peer) review, as is standard practice for this content type.

12.1 Review Model

PESR uses double-blind review: the identities of authors are concealed from reviewers, and the identities of reviewers are concealed from authors, throughout the process.

The Editorial Office is responsible for anonymising each manuscript before it is sent for review. This includes removing information such as author names, affiliations, acknowledgements, and self-citations that reveal identity, and reformatting the file into the journal's standard blind-review template with file metadata removed and the file renamed according to the Editorial Office's internal tracking system. Each research article and review article is evaluated by a minimum of two independent subject-matter reviewers, external to the author's institution and to the publisher institution (Forman Christian College).

12.2 Process and Timeline

Initial editorial screening (scope fit, plagiarism check, formatting compliance, and desk review) is completed within approximately in week of submission.

Manuscripts that pass initial screening are assigned to a handling Editor, who invites at least two qualified reviewers with no conflict of interest (Section 5).

The full review cycle typically takes one to three months from assignment to a first decision, depending on reviewer availability; authors may request a status update from the Editor at any time.

Reviewers are asked to assess originality, theoretical and methodological soundness, clarity of argument, engagement with relevant literature, ethical compliance (Section 6), and overall contribution to the field.

Possible decisions are: Accept, Minor Revisions, Major Revisions, Reject. All decisions are communicated to the corresponding author in writing, with reviewer comments provided anonymously.

Where reviewers disagree substantially, the handling Editor either makes a reasoned editorial judgment or invites an additional reviewer to adjudicate.

12.3 Reviewer Selection and Recognition

Reviewers are selected for demonstrated subject-matter expertise, evidenced by publication record, qualifications, or professional experience relevant to the manuscript.

PESR maintains a reviewer database via OJS and welcomes self-nomination by qualified scholars, subject to Editorial Team approval.

With reviewers' consent, PESR acknowledges reviewer service (e.g., in an annual reviewer list) without disclosing which manuscripts an individual reviewed, and issues each reviewer a certificate of appreciation.

12.4 Confidentiality and Integrity of Review

Manuscripts under review are confidential documents; reviewers may not share them, discuss them outside the review process, or use unpublished data, arguments, or interpretations for their own work.

Reviewers may not upload manuscript content to generative AI tools or third-party services (see Section 11, AI Policy).

Suspected breaches of review confidentiality, reviewer coercion of citation (“citation stacking”), or reviewer plagiarism of the author's ideas are treated as misconduct under Section 13.

12.5 Appeals of Review Decisions

Authors who believe a decision was affected by a procedural error, reviewer bias, or misunderstanding of the manuscript may appeal in writing to the Editorial Office, following the Appeal process in Section 13.4.

13. Appeals, Complaints, and Misconduct Policy

PESR is committed to research and publication integrity. This policy sets out how the journal handles (a) complaints and allegations of misconduct, and (b) author appeals of editorial decisions, following HEC and COPE guidelines, including COPE's published flowcharts for suspected misconduct.

13.1 Scope of Misconduct

Misconduct that may be investigated under this policy includes, but is not limited to: fabrication or falsification of data (Section 7); plagiarism or self-plagiarism (Section 10); authorship disputes, ghost or gift authorship (Section 2); undisclosed conflicts of interest (Section 5); breaches of research ethics or human-subjects protection (Section 6); manipulation of the peer-review process (e.g., reviewer coercion, fabricated reviewer identities); redundant or duplicate publication; and citation manipulation (Section 9.3).

13.2 Raising a Complaint

Complaints or concerns about possible misconduct affecting the reliability of a submission or published work may be raised by anyone — authors, reviewers, readers, or third parties — by writing to the Editorial Office.

Complaints should be submitted in writing (fjss@fccollege.edu.pk) and should include as much specific, verifiable detail as possible (e.g., the article or manuscript identifier, the nature of the concern, and supporting evidence).

The Editorial Office will acknowledge receipt of a complaint and provide a definite or interim response within two weeks, depending on the nature and complexity of the complaint.

13.3 Investigation and Outcomes

The Editor, guided by the Editorial Team and by COPE guidance (including relevant COPE flowcharts), will investigate the complaint, which may include seeking a response from the author(s), consulting reviewers or independent experts, and requesting supporting data or documentation (Sections 5, 7.3).

Where appropriate, the matter may be referred to the author's institution or funding body for further investigation, particularly where institutional resources (e.g., access to raw data, personnel records) are required.

Based on the Editorial Team's assessment, PESR may take actions including, but not limited to: requesting clarification or a correction from the author(s); issuing a formal expression of concern; contacting the author's institution; rejecting a manuscript under review; or retracting a published article (Section 14).

All parties are treated fairly and in confidence during an investigation, consistent with COPE principles; unfounded complaints do not appear on an author's record.

13.4 Appeals of Editorial Decisions

An author who wishes to appeal a rejection, or any other editorial decision they believe was affected by a procedural error, reviewer bias, or a material misunderstanding of the manuscript, may submit a written appeal to the Editorial Office within 30 days of the decision, stating the specific grounds for appeal.

The Editorial Team will review the appeal, which may include seeking an opinion from an Editorial Board member not previously involved in the manuscript, or inviting an additional independent reviewer.

The outcome of an appeal (upheld, in whole or part, or declined) is communicated in writing, with reasons, normally within 30 days of receipt of the appeal.

The decision on appeal is final within the journal's internal process; an author who remains dissatisfied may raise the matter with the publisher (Forman Christian College) or, where relevant, with COPE.

14. Corrections and Retraction Policy

14.1 Corrections

A corresponding author who discovers an error in a published article should contact the journal's Editorial Office promptly, providing full details of the required correction.

No charge is made to the author for corrections.

Requests for correction that affect the interpretation or conclusions of a published article are reviewed by the Editor and Editor-in-Chief before a correction notice is issued; minor corrections (e.g., typographical errors, formatting) may be actioned by the Editor directly.

Every correction notice is linked bidirectionally to the original article, dated, and clearly explains what was changed and why.

14.2 Retraction

PESR reserves the right to retract any published article found to be in conflict with the journal's ethical policies (Sections 1, 6, 7, 10, 13), including but not limited to confirmed data fabrication/falsification, plagiarism, redundant publication, or a fundamental error that invalidates the work's conclusions.

A retracted article is marked as “RETRACTED” on the article page and in the PDF; the original article and a linked retraction notice explaining the reason both remain permanently accessible to readers, consistent with COPE's retraction guidelines and the journal's archiving commitments (Section 19).

14.3 Removal of Content

The journal also reserves the right to remove an article from its online platforms, temporarily or permanently, in exceptional circumstances, including where:

The article contains defamatory content;

The article infringes a third party's intellectual property right, right to privacy, or other legal right;

A court or government order has been issued, or is likely to be issued, requiring removal of the content; or

Recommendations or conclusions in the article, if erroneous, pose a serious risk of harm to individuals, communities, or the public interest (for example, through flawed policy guidance or a failure to protect participant confidentiality).

Where content is removed, a statement giving the reason for removal is published online in its place.

15. Open Access, Copyright, and Licensing Policy

All research articles, review articles, and book reviews published in PESR are immediately and permanently open access, free of charge to readers and without embargo, consistent with DOAJ's Best Practice requirements.

15.1 Copyright Ownership

Authors retain copyright in their published work.

Authors grant PESR the right of first publication and a non-exclusive license to publish, distribute, and archive the work as part of the journal.

15.2 Open Access Statement

PESR publishes all content under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) license. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.

Under CC BY 4.0, readers may copy, redistribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercially, provided appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and source, a link to the license is provided, and any changes made are indicated.

The specific license applied to each article is displayed on the article's landing page and within the PDF, together with a link to the full license text.

15.3 Publisher and Journal Responsibility

The journal/publisher is not responsible for the subsequent, downstream uses that third parties make of published work under its open license, provided such use complies with the applicable Creative Commons terms.

Authors warrant, at submission, that they hold the necessary rights to grant this license, including rights to any third-party material (images, data, long quotations) reproduced in the article (Section 11.1).

16. Publication Charges (Article Processing Charges) Policy

PESR does not charge authors any fee at any stage of the publication process, including submission fees, article processing charges (APCs), page charges, colour-figure charges, or fast-track/expedited-review fees.

This applies equally to all authors regardless of nationality, institutional affiliation, or funding status, and regardless of whether the article results from funded or unfunded research.

16.1 Source of Support

PESR is the official journal of School of Economics, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan, which funds the journal's editorial, production, hosting, and archiving costs as part of its institutional research and publication mandate.

Should this fee policy change in future, PESR will publish the revised policy at least six months in advance of implementation, apply it only to newly submitted manuscripts, and notify DOAJ and other indexing bodies of the change, in line with DOAJ's transparency requirements.

17. Advertising and Sponsorship Policy

This policy formalises, for DOAJ and prospective indexers, the advertising position previously stated under “Source of Funding,” and sets out how PESR would manage advertising if this position were ever to change.

17.1 Current Policy

PESR does not carry commercial advertisements, sponsored content, or paid promotional material of any kind on its website, in its issues, or in its correspondence with authors and reviewers.

PESR does not accept sponsorship that would influence, or be perceived to influence, editorial decisions, content selection, or peer review.

17.2 Governing Principles (Should Advertising Be Introduced)

Should the Editorial Team and publisher decide in future to accept advertising, PESR commits in advance to the following COPE/DOAJ-aligned safeguards:

Advertising decisions will be made independently of, and without influence over, editorial and peer-review decisions; advertisers will have no role in content selection, review, or editorial policy.

Advertisements will be clearly labelled as such, visually distinct from editorial content, and will not be placed adjacent to related editorial content in a way that implies endorsement.

PESR will not accept advertising for products or services that conflict with the journal's academic mission or with recognised ethical, health, or legal standards, and will not accept advertising directly targeted at individual readers based on their personal data.

Any future advertising policy will be published in full on the journal website prior to implementation.

18. Subscription and Access Policy

PESR is an online-only, fully open-access journal; no subscription is required to access or read published articles. All material on the journal's website is freely accessible and readable at no charge. Each article is assigned a DOI, ensuring it can be located through academic search engines and indexes such as Google Scholar.

PESR reserves the right to review or amend this access policy in future, though any such change would be made consistent with the journal's underlying commitment to open access (Section 15) and would not apply retroactively to previously published back-issue content (Section 19.2). Questions about accessing PESR's open-access, free-to-read articles may be directed to PESR@fccollege.edu.pk.

19. Digital Preservation and Archiving Policy

As a condition of DOAJ listing and a prerequisite for consideration by Scopus and Web of Science, PESR commits to the long-term digital preservation of its published content, independent of the continued operation of the journal's own website or OJS installation. Authors are free to share the published version of their article in an institutional repository, or on a personal or academic website, at any time, with citation to the original publication in PESR (self-archiving is not embargoed).

19.1 Preservation Arrangements

PESR is hosted on the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform and deposits its published content with the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN), a distributed digital preservation service built on LOCKSS technology and designed specifically for OJS journals. Deposit ensures that the journal’s content remains accessible even if the journal’s own servers become unavailable.

The Editorial Team additionally pursues deposit with other recognised digital archives (CLOCKSS) as capacity allows.

19.2 Continued Access

In the event that PESR ceases publication, or Forman Christian College is no longer able to host the journal, back issues will remain freely accessible through the preservation archive(s) described in Section 1, in keeping with DOAJ's continued-access requirement for open-access journals.

The journal's back file (all previously published issues) will remain permanently open access and free to read, regardless of any future change to the journal's operating status.

19.3 Version Control

Once an article is published in an issue, its content is not altered except through the formal correction or retraction process (Section 14); any post-publication change is clearly marked and dated, and the original version remains accessible alongside the correction notice.

20. Privacy Policy

The journal's privacy policy aligns with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) code of conduct. Personal information of authors is protected in line with applicable intellectual-property and copyright law. This policy does not extend to public information or to information voluntarily provided to PESR editors for editorial purposes.

Personal information (such as name, email address, and other publication-relevant details) is collected solely for the purposes of editorial communication, feedback collection, and sharing updates about the journal.

Personal information is a compulsory requirement for authors submitting a manuscript, but no personal information is required to read or download articles from the journal.

PESR does not share users' personal information with third parties and retains it only as long as it remains relevant to these purposes, or until the individual requests its removal.

Any individual may request removal of their personal information by contacting the editor at PESR@fccollege.edu.pk.

This Privacy Policy is reviewed and revised as circumstances require; users are advised to check it periodically for updates.