About the Journal

Editorial Code of Ethics

This Code is based on the recommendations of the Commitee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and Elsevier Publishing

I. Introduction

Economía & Región is a bi-annual journal published by Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar, in Cartagena, Colombia. Its purpose is to publish academic research in economics and, in general, in the social sciences, especially that related to the Caribbean Region of Colombia. It will accept for review manuscripts in Spanish or English.

Economía & Región is listed in Dotec-Colombia (Colombia), EBSCO Publishing (United States), Journal of Economic Literature (EconLit – United States), Gale Cengage Learning (United States), Latindex (Mexico), and RePEc (United States – Sweden).

The full contents of all issues of Economía & Región can be downloaded in free format (Open Access OA) at https://revistas.utb.edu.co/index.php/economia-y-region. 

II. Editorial Norms

To ensure high quality and transparency standards in the selection process of manuscripts for publication, Economía & Región has a staff of two co-Editors and an editorial assistant, and two advisory boards: an Editorial Committee and a Scientific Committee.

The Editors will consider for publication original, unpublished research articles, essays, reviews of the literature and book reviews.  A research article is a text that reports the results of original research on a specific subject.  An essay is a work that examines a specific topic from different perspectives.  A review of the literature is a text that evaluates a body of work in a specific area in order to give a general perspective of the state of the discipline on the subject.  A book review is an opinion text that describes the contents of a book and evaluates its strengths and shortcomings.

Economía & Región will not consider for evaluation previously published texts.  The Editors, however, may accept for review substantial revisions of papers that incorporate relevant new information, updated research with new empirical evidence or other changes that make it substantially different from the original version. 

When submitting for publication manuscripts with the above characteristics, authors must clearly identify the previously published text and indicate the changes introduced to the original.  In these cases, authors must submit a copy of the original text and explain in detail any changes.  The original publication must be cited in the new version. 

The norms contained in this Code of Editorial Ethics and its permanent updating are the responsibility of the Editors, with the support of the Editorial Committee and the Scientific Committee.  The purpose of these norms is to establish the editorial procedures that must be observed by the Editorial Staff, authors and peer reviewers to ensure the highest academic and ethical standards in the evaluation of the journal’s contents.

A. Editorial Staff Responsibilities

  1. Initiate with sufficient notice the Call for Papers for each issue of Economía & Región.
  2. Receive submitted manuscripts, promptly acknowledges receipt to the authors and indicates the approximate duration of the peer review process, which should not exceed four months.
  3. Undertake a preliminary review of submitted manuscripts for quality and originality, including the application of tools to detect possible forms of plagiarism.
  4. Once this review is completed, either reject the text or send it to two anonymous peers for evaluation.
  5. Designate peer reviewers who are professional experts in the subject of the manuscript, are not ethically compromised to undertake the evaluation and are not affiliated with Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar or the organizations to which the authors belong.
  6. Ensure that the review process is transparent and confidential, and that reviewers complete their evaluations on time.
  7. Accept or reject reviewed manuscripts in light of the evaluation of academic peers.
  8. Submit the contents of each issue of the journal to the Editorial Committee for approval.
  9. Respond immediately to observations about the contents of Economía & Región or complaints about any violation of the standards of transparency established in this Code of Editorial Ethics. In all cases, the Editorial Staff will promptly undertake the corresponding inquiry.
  10. Send each issue of Economía & Región to repositories and indexation systems, exchange lists and other institutional addressees, and subscribers.

 B. Authors’ Responsibilities

The submission of a manuscript for review to Economía & Región implies that the authors:

  1. Have read, accept and abide by this Code of Editorial Ethics.
  2. Declare that the manuscript is original, that it is previously unpublished (except in formats such as first drafts, working papers, graduate thesis, etc.) and is not under review for publication elsewhere.
  3. Identify clearly the authors of the paper, who accept responsibility for its contents.
  4. Give full credit to the ideas and quotations of the work of others and obtain, if so required, proper authorization for the use of this material.
  5. Agree that Economía & Región will edit the manuscript to comply with the Guidelines for Authors (Appendix A).
  6. Understand that submission of a manuscript for evaluation to Economía & Región does not imply that the journal has an obligation to publish it.
  7. Agree that the manuscript will be reviewed by anonymous academic peers and that they will respond to their observations and comments, if any, within the deadline established by the Editors.  Authors must accompany their revised text with a letter addressed to the Editors explaining how each observation and comment received from the peer reviewers was addressed. Any disagreement with reviewers’ comments must be justified to the satisfaction of the Editors.
  8. Agree to transfer to Economía & Región the copyright of the manuscript in the event it is selected for publication.
  9. Will give proper credit to Economía & Región if they later decide to re-publish the paper elsewhere.
  10. Give appropriate credit to all institutions and persons who have in any way contributed to the research and writing of the manuscript.
  11. Will provide the Editors any additional information that they may request during the process of evaluating the manuscript.
  12. Declare any form of sponsorship, grant or other financial aid received for their work that could influence the interpretation of results. They must also clearly state any conflicts of interest.
  13. Carefully attribute quotes or paraphrased ideas of others. To present other authors’ ideas without clear attribution is plagiarism, a grievous ethical lapse that will result in the rejection of the manuscript by the Editors without further consideration.
  14. Immediately inform the Editors of any significant error or omission in a published paper of their authorship, so that an erratum can be included in the next issue. This applies to data, bibliography, the inclusion or exclusion of authors or credits, as well as errors in the institutional affiliation of authors.

 C. Peer Reviewers’ Responsibilities

To help ensure a high academic standard of its contents, Economía & Región relies on anonymous peer reviews as an essential component of the evaluation process of manuscripts.

  1. Peer reviewers are professionals in their field who are responsible for evaluating academic manuscripts based on the standards established by Economía & Región. These standards include the pertinence of the paper in its field, the rigor of exposition and its contribution to knowledge. Reviewers will also strive to identify errors and possible instances of plagiarism, suggest improvements, evaluate the originality of the text and verify its coherence, in particular the correspondence between its argumentation and its conclusions.   
  2. Upon agreeing to review a manuscript, peers are bound to give their concepts and recommendations objectively and fairly. For this task, they must observe the protocols established by Economía & Región, in particular using the Evaluation Format (Appendix B) and abiding by the deadline established by the Editors.   Reviewers cannot delegate their work to others.
  3. Reviewers must not have ethical conflicts of any kind to evaluate manuscripts. If a reviewer thinks she has an ethical conflict, insufficient expertise on the subject or is otherwise unsuited to evaluate a manuscript, she must notify the Editors at once.
  4. Upon evaluating a manuscript, reviewers may accept it without modifications, accept it with modifications or reject it outright.
  5. Economía & Región uses a double-blind method to evaluate manuscripts. The Editors will not disclose to reviewers the names of authors or their institutional affiliation. Reviewers, whose identities are unknown to authors, must keep their work confidential, not only in regards to the text but also its parts (references, data, results, analysis and conclusions).
  6. Reviewers may not use materials under review that are not published, except with the express consent of the authors.
  7. If one or both reviewers request modifications to the manuscript as a condition for the acceptance of the text for publication, the Editors will notify the authors and give them a deadline to address the changes. If this time limit expires without an answer, the Editors may rescind of the manuscript. 

 

Appendix A

Guidelines for Authors

I. Manuscript Specifications

A. The text should be between 15 and 40 pages long, including tables, figures, maps, the reference list, and appendices, if any. The format is Microsoft Word or LaTeX, pages in letter size (8 x 11 in.), with two inch margins on all sides, 1.5 spacing, and 12 point Times New Roman font. All pages, except the first, should be numbered in the upper right corner.

B. The title should appear at the top left of the first page in upper case letters and 14 point Times New Roman font. It should be brief and specific. Below the title, on the right margin, the name of the author(s) should be included together with a footnote (*), indicating only the author(s) institutional affiliation(s), e-mail, and acknowledgements (external funding, peer contributions), if any.

C. Below the authors’ names, abstracts in English and Spanish of no more than 150 words should be included. The abstracts will briefly inform the purpose of the research, the methodology used, and the main findings. Following the abstracts, at least three key words and three Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classifications should be added.

D. Section titles should be written on the left margin in boldface, 12 point Times New Roman font. Sections should be numbered successively in upper case Roman numerals (I, II, III, IV, etc). If there are any further subsections of the manuscript, they should be numbered A, B, C, etc, and then 1, 2, 3, etc. The manuscript should have no more than three types of subdivisions (I, A, 1).

II. Tables, Graphs and Equations

A. Tables or graphs, if any, should be submitted in Excel format, in separate pages at the end of the manuscript, in black and white (no colors), and indicating where they should be inserted in the text. Maps should have a resolution of at least 300 dpi. All tables, graphs and maps should be enumerated successively in Arabic numerals (Table 1, Table 2, etc; Graph 1, Graph 2, etc; Map 1, Map 2, etc.). The source should be cited as a footnote to the table, graph or map. Graphs and maps should be print ready. Authors should provide the source files of tables, graphs and maps, should they need to be edited again.

B. Equations and mathematical formulas should appear in separate lines from the preceding paragraph and should be identified with successive Arabic numerals written in parentheses on the right margin of the page.

C. Decimals should be separated by commas; thousands, by periods. Examples: 3,1416; “per 100.000 people”…

D. Monetary values should be preceded by the name of the currency. Examples: USD $5.000, COP $2’000.000

III. Footnotes and References

A. Footnotes should be used sparingly and only to clarify or expand some idea or concept that does not fit well in the text. Citations of works included in the reference list must always be inserted in parenthesis in the text and should include the author’s last and first names, followed by the year of publication and, if it is a direct quote, the page number. For example: (Lopez, 1990); (Perez and Gonzalez, 1979, pp. 234–35); (Acemoglu, et al., 2004, p. 89).

B. At the end of the manuscript, a list of references should be included. This is a list of books, articles and other materials consulted or cited in the text.

  • References should be listed in alphabetical order by the authors’ last name, except newspaper or magazine articles with no author, which should be listed according to the name of the publication.
  • The name(s) of author(s) should include the full first and last names.
  • Following the name(s) of author(s), the date of publication should appear in parenthesis.
  • The titles of books, periodical publications and newspapers should be written in italics, but not in boldface or within quotation marks.
  • The titles of articles should be written in regular font within quotation marks and not in boldface.
  • Internet sources must include the date of their retrieval.

Examples:

Books:

Diamond, Jared (1998), Guns, Germs, and Steel, New York: Norton.

Bates, Robert H. (1999), Open-Economy Politics: The Political Economy of the World Coffee Trade, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.

Papers:

Cutler, David, Edward Glaeser y Jesse Shapiro (2003), “Why Have Americans Become More Obese”, Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 17, No. 3.

Acemoglu, Daron, Camilo García-Jimeno, and James A. Robinson (2012), “Finding El Dorado: Slavery and Long-run Development in Colombia”, Journal of Comparative Economics, Vol. 40, No. 4.

Unauthored newspaper or magazine  article:

The New York Times (2012), “China’s Banking Leaders Seek to Calm Concerns Over Loan Quality”, p. 3A, november 12.

Theses or dissertations:

Butcher, James Jeffrey (2018), A Study of Identity Issues that Affect Clergy Leadership on LGTBQ Inclusion, Doctoral Thesis, Armidale: University of New England.

IV. Submission

Manuscripts submitted for publication in Economía & Región should be sent to

Economía & Región

E mail: economiayregion@utb.edu.co