Author Guidelines

AJDF: Submission Guidelines

Please read our submission guidelines thoroughly before submitting a paper. Papers will not be reviewed if they do not follow our submission guidelines.

Submission Policy

Any work that is submitted to the AJDF should NOT be one that another journal is considering for publication. Every manuscript that is submitted must be original, thoroughly cite and detail all earlier research on the same topic, and contrast its findings with that research. As outlined in our Editorial Policy, authors should be familiar with how we manage conflicts of interest involving authors and coeditors. They should also identify any potential personal conflicts in an accompanying cover letter.

The AJDF uses CrossCheck to screen its submissions in an effort to prevent plagiarism. CrossCheck employs the Turnitin or iThenticate tool to “check authored work against the content in the database and identify matching or similar text for further editorial review.” CrossCheck contains a “library of current and archival scholarly publications.” When a submission is made to an AJDF journal, the Association is given the go-ahead to use the CrossCheck system to check it for plagiarism.

At the time of submission, submission fees must be paid via credit card. Manuscripts that have been previously rejected by the AJDF cannot be reviewed by us. Without conducting a review, the AJDF has the power to reject articles. A 50% submission fee refund will be given for papers that are rejected without review. A Disclosure Statement is required for all submissions, including changes. Even when the writers have no relevant conflicts of interest to report, this still holds true. Each coauthor’s Disclosure Statement must be submitted separately by the authors at the time of submission. Also, the statements must mention whether the project received IRB approval and, if not, why (s). Submissions that omit the statements will be deemed insufficient and not examined.

Fees

Submission fees must be paid by credit card at the time of submission. If you have any questions, please contact the AADFI secretariat at info@adfi-ci.org or call +225 27 22 527 940.

Members of the AJDF: $90
Non-members: $150

Papers rejected without review will be refunded 50% of the submission fee.

Guidelines

Read guidelines thoroughly. Papers will not be reviewed if they do not follow our submission guidelines. Papers should be submitted electronically to AADFI website

Upon receipt of the paper, a confirmation e-mail will be sent electronically.

All manuscripts should be submitted in word or PDF format with 1.5 line spacing. We strongly recommend manuscripts not exceed 15 pages. The suggested length includes reference lists, figures, and tables. Excessively long submissions may be summarily rejected.
Please use 12-point Calibri font. Margins should be 1.5 inches on the top, bottom, and sides.
Please include the words “For Online Publication” at the beginning of any lengthy appendix. Note that referees are also expected to read the appendix, and the appendix also must stay within a reasonable length. Unless the circumstances are exceptional (in which case you can feel free to explain them in your cover letter), we do not expect referees to be able to process a 100-page appendix within a reasonable time frame. Manuscripts with unreasonably long appendices may also be rejected without review.
Your manuscript should include a title page with each author’s name and contact information.
All submissions, including revisions, must be accompanied by a Disclosure Statement. This is applicable even when the authors have no relevant interests to disclose. Authors will need to provide a separate Disclosure Statement for each coauthor at the time of submission.
Include an abstract of 150 or fewer words.
All submissions must comply with our Data and Code Availability Policy. Papers that use data that cannot be published can be exempted from the requirement to provide some or all data (if notifying the journal upon submission and in your cover letter), but must otherwise comply with the policy.
Fully reference all prior work on the same subject and compare your paper to that work. In addition to referencing the work of other scholars, you should be certain to cite your own work when applicable.

Please note:

Cover letter: Generally speaking, a cover letter is not necessary. Please use the cover letter exclusively for substantive material, such as to request a specific Coeditor (they may or may not be honored), clarify the data availability policy, or indicate that a certain Coeditor would pose a conflict of interest if assigned to your article. Do not include a cover letter if you have nothing substantive to say. The easiest way to submit a cover letter is to type it straight into the manuscript central submission form.
We give authors who are submitting the opportunity to use AJDF Templates. If these templates are utilized, “review mode” should be used. It should be noted that using the AJDF templates is not required for authors to submit their work.
Appendices longer than five pages will only be published on our website if your work is chosen for publishing rather than in the printed journal. These appendices won’t be typeset or edited by the journal before being published.
If your manuscript is accepted for publication, all the data you used for your research must be accurately recorded and made available on the journal’s website so that others can replicate your results.
Please use parentheses to indicate standard errors and asterisks to indicate significance levels in tables.
We advise you to create your reference list using bibliographic software. Please choose the “APA 7TH Edition” style if you’re using such software.

Tips for Submitting Authors

There is no recipe for getting a paper into the AJDF. However, here are a few tips for a smooth submission and review process:

DOs

Please read the DON’Ts.
Use the submission letter to inform the AJDF editors of any unique circumstances (such as potential conflicts of interest, the publication history of the manuscript in a different journal, etc.). Your letter should explain why you have concerns in-depth rather than just saying that “person X does not enjoy the publication or this area of employment.”
In the first 10 days following the submission of a paper, please check your email to make sure no one from the AJDF team has contacted you regarding issues with the submission.
If it has been two months and you have not heard from us, kindly email to ask how your submission is progressing.
Ensure that the AJDF is included in your list of “safe senders.” Periodically check your Junk Mail to be sure emails from the AJDF did not land there. We solely use email to contact with authors.
Before submitting a paper, please read our submission requirements. This also holds true for seasoned submitters because the rules are subject to recurring updates. Being careful to give disclosure declarations, adhere to our requirements for article length, accept our data posting and replication policy, or, when the data utilized is proprietary, explain why your data cannot be made publically available, can help you save time.
It’s crucial to disclose the usage of confidential data in your paper at the time of submission. The editors reserve the right to deem manuscripts “unacceptable” if the authors did not declare the confidentiality of the data at the outset of the review procedure. If a publication has several authors, please ask the coauthors who are in control of the data if the data can be made available to the public.
Please take the time to look at prior issues of the journal to get a sense of the kinds of papers we publish. This is especially important for submitters who are not specifically from the academic world. The AJDF is a scholarly publication. Notwithstanding how fascinating they may be, we do not publish policy recommendations, letters, or essays that express the writers’ opinions on the economy.

DON’Ts

In particular, graduate students should not submit early drafts of their work for review. A promising but unpolished paper is likely to be rejected, and submission of an improved version in the future is no longer possible after rejection (the AJDF has a policy of not reconsidering manuscripts that were rejected by the AJDF). When submitting to journals, wait until you have received and considered seminar feedback.

Please refrain from writing lengthy cover letters outlining the paper’s significance or identifying references in the media. They are irrelevant to the choice. In the vast majority of situations, a submission letter is not necessary, so don’t feel pressured to create one.

In the letter of submission, avoid suggesting referees for your paper. Such recommendations are rejected.

Unless the coeditor specifically requested your article, avoid addressing the submission letter to a specific coeditor (in which case you should indicate this in the submission letter). Although you are free to request a specific coeditor to work on your article, there is no assurance that your request will be granted. The editor-in-chief assigns papers to coeditors based on a number of factors (including potential conflicts of interest and coeditor work loads).

Although you have the right to appeal a judgment, you should be aware that this rarely happens unless it appears that the decision was made in error. The editors have the right to decide. There are other additional venues for employment that the AJDF might have rejected.

. Data Legality, Availability, and Ethics

6.1 Data Legality Policy

The AJDF’s Data Legality Policy is a foundational integrity requirement. All data used in papers published in the AJDF must be legally acquired. The handling Co-editor may reject a manuscript at any stage if there are reasonable grounds to believe that data were not lawfully obtained.

Data Legality — Core Principle

All data used in AJDF-published studies must be legitimately obtained.Papers using data acquired through unauthorised access, misappropriation, or deception will be rejected or retracted.Institutional data not publicly available or disclosed in annual reports — such as internal solvency assessments or unpublished operational data — are not acceptable unless explicit institutional authorisation is provided.Questions about data legality must be raised with the Data Editor at the time of submission, not later in the editorial process.AADFI bears no liability for data-related claims arising from published work. Full author responsibility applies.

Permitted Exceptions

The Data Legality Policy provides two narrow exceptions:

The author acquired data from a third party in good faith and had no reasonable grounds to suspect it was illegally obtained. Authors must demonstrate legitimate acquisition if any grounds for suspicion exist.
In very rare circumstances, the Co-editor, Data Editor, and Secretary-Treasurer jointly determine that the societal value of the research outweighs the concern about unlawful acquisition. Authors must declare the data provenance issue in their cover letter at initial submission.

6.2 Data and Code Availability Policy

The AJDF is committed to research transparency and replicability. All papers accepted for publication that involve empirical analysis, simulations, or experimental work must comply with the following data and code availability requirements prior to final acceptance.

Required Replication Materials

For econometric, simulation, and experimental papers, the following must be deposited in the AJDF Data and Code Repository:

The complete dataset(s) used in the analysis.
With descriptive variable names, value labels, and a codebook or README file.
In open, non-proprietary formats wherever possible.
Description sufficient to access all data at their original source location.
All programs used to construct analysis datasets from raw data.
All programs used to run final models and produce reported results.
A master script enabling sequential execution of all programs.
codebooks, statistical log files/do-files and analysis scripts
Compliance with Ai Policy

For papers collecting original data through surveys or experiments, the following must additionally be deposited:

Survey instruments or experimental instructions.
In the language of administration and in English.
Computer code for survey or experiment collection mechanisms.
Original instructions and documentation on subject selection.

Non-Public Data

Where data cannot be made publicly available due to confidentiality agreements, privacy restrictions, or copyright limitations, the following applies:

Authors must disclose all restrictions at the time of submission.
A confidential (non-publishable) version of the data should be made available to the AJDF Data Editor and any designated third-party replicator.
A detailed data availability statement explaining the nature of restrictions and how an independent researcher may seek to access comparable data must be included.
Authors must retain data and code for a minimum of five years after publication and respond to reasonable requests for clarification.
The framework should also accommodate legitimate restrictions where data cannot be made public, while still requiring appropriate confidential documentation for editorial verification

Disclosure Policy

All submissions must include a completed Disclosure Statement. This requirement applies without exception, including where the authors have nothing to disclose. Separate disclosure statements are required from each co-author.

Disclosure Statement Must Cover
All funding sources for the research	Ethics board approval name and reference number (where applicable)
Any paid or unpaid positions as officer, director, or board member of relevant organisations	IRB approval or documented exemption reason
Disclosures by close relatives or partners of each author where applicable	Use of any AI tools in the preparation of the manuscript
Whether a third party reviewed the manuscript prior to submission	Whether any data used is confidential or subject to access restrictions

Publication of Disclosure: For published articles, conflict of interest information will be made publicly available. A brief summary appears in the acknowledgements footnote. Detailed disclosures are published on the AJDF website alongside the article. Undisclosed conflicts of interest discovered post-publication will result in a public notice of breach and referral to the Economist Forum Executive Committee.

Plagiarism Policy

The AJDF maintains a zero-tolerance policy on plagiarism in all its forms. The following constitute plagiarism under AJDF standards:

Reproduction of text, data, figures, or images from prior work without proper attribution or permission.
Paraphrasing of others’ text, concepts, or ideas without citation.
Self-plagiarism: reuse of the author’s own previously published text, data, or ideas without disclosure and proper citation.

All manuscripts are screened using Turnitin, iThenticate, or equivalent anti-plagiarism software at initial submission and again before final acceptance. A conditional acceptance decision may be revoked upon detection of plagiarism. Confirmed cases of plagiarism are reported to the AJDF Economist Forum Executive Committee and appropriate institutional authorities.

Ethics Approval

Where research involves human subjects, institutional data, or requires formal ethics review under applicable disciplinary standards, the following must be provided:

Name of the approving ethics board or institutional review board (IRB).
Approval reference number or documented exemption.
This information must appear in the title page footnote and in each co-author’s Disclosure Statement.

Artificial Intelligence and Publication Integrity

Policy Rationale

The AADFI Economist Forum identified the governance of AI-generated content as a foundational issue requiring resolution before the AJDF accepts its first submissions. This policy reflects the journal’s commitment to authorship integrity, intellectual accountability, and transparent scholarship. It is not intended to prohibit the use of AI tools, but to establish clear standards for their responsible use and mandatory disclosure.

Permitted Uses of AI Tools

Authors may use AI-assisted tools for the following purposes without restriction, subject to disclosure:

Grammar, spelling, and language editing (e.g. Grammarly, ProWritingAid).
Translation assistance for non-English native language authors.
Statistical analysis software with AI-assisted functions (e.g. STATA, R, Python with ML packages).
Reference management and literature search facilitation.
Data visualisation and charting tools with AI features.

Restricted and Prohibited Uses

Prohibited AI Uses — Zero Tolerance

AI tools (including large language models such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, or any equivalent) may NOT be listed or credited as authors or co-authors of any manuscript. Authorship requires human intellectual responsibility.Manuscripts in which the core intellectual argument, original analysis, or substantive contribution was generated by AI rather than by a human author will be rejected.AI-generated fabrication of citations, data, statistics, or quotations is treated as research misconduct equivalent to data fabrication and will result in permanent rejection and reporting to institutional authorities.Submitting AI-generated content as original human work without disclosure constitutes a breach of publication ethics and may result in rejection, retraction, and institutional reporting.

Disclosure Requirements

Authors must disclose all AI tool use in their Disclosure Statement at the time of submission. The disclosure must specify:

Which AI tools were used.
The specific purpose for which each tool was used (e.g. language editing, literature search, statistical analysis).
Whether any section of the manuscript was drafted with AI assistance, and if so, which section and to what extent.

A brief AI use disclosure must also appear in the published article’s methodology or acknowledgements section. Suggested wording: “The authors used [tool name] for [specific purpose]. All intellectual content, analysis, and conclusions are the sole responsibility of the authors.”

AI Review Policy

The AJDF does not permit AI tools to be used as peer reviewers. All peer review must be conducted by qualified human experts. Co-editors who use AI tools to assist in reviewing manuscripts must disclose this to the Editor-in-Chief and may not substitute AI-generated assessments for their own professional judgement.

Evolving Standards

The use of AI in research and publishing is evolving rapidly. The AJDF commits to reviewing and updating this policy annually in line with developments in AI technology and emerging international publication ethics standards. Authors are encouraged to contact the Editorial Office for guidance on any AI use not explicitly addressed in this policy.

Copyright, Legal Framework, and Author Rights

Copyright Policy

Upon acceptance and publication, copyright in the published work is held by AADFI. The following terms apply:

AADFI retains the perpetual, unrestricted right to publish, distribute, reproduce, archive, disseminate, and adapt published articles in any format or medium, including online platforms, digital repositories, and print editions.
Authors retain the right to reuse their own published work in other works, including book chapters, reports, and institutional publications, provided proper attribution to AJDF is given.
Authors may post their accepted manuscripts (post-print versions) on personal or institutional websites and in open-access repositories after a 6-month embargo from the AJDF publication date.
For personal and educational use, copies of AJDF publications may be made without charge, provided they are not distributed for commercial gain and carry the full citation including the AJDF attribution.

Author Responsibility and Indemnification

By submitting to the AJDF, all authors accept the following legal responsibilities:

Author Responsibility — Binding Terms

Authors bear full and sole responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and legal compliance of their submitted work.Authors warrant that their submission does not infringe the intellectual property, copyright, or privacy rights of any third party.Authors agree to indemnify AADFI Journal, its management, staff, and representatives from all claims, liabilities, and legal costs arising from the publication of their work.AADFI Journal shall not be held liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from the publication or use of any content.Submission of a manuscript constitutes full acceptance of these terms.