Guide for Authors

Note : Further information on most of the topics below can be found at http://www.elsevier.com/authors

Submission procedure

Submissions are handled online at http://ees.elsevier.com/iepol/ Once you have logged on as author using your assigned IEP username and password, you will be guided through the creation and uploading of your files. When submitting, save the file in the native format of the word processor used. We accept most word processing formats, but Word, WordPerfect or LaTeX/Scientific Word are preferred. Save your files with the default extension of the program used. (See the section "Preparation of Submissions" for submitted articles below for important additional information.)

The system automatically converts your source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Note that your manuscript should be submitted as a source file which means in any of the Word processing file or Latex but not as a PDF. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, the source files are needed for further processing after acceptance.

Correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail within the online submission system. Therefore, users need to keep their contact coordinates on the registration page up-to-date with the "UPDATE MY INFORMATION" option.

Authors are encouraged to contact authorsupport@elsevier.com should they have technical inquiries about the online submission system.

Language services
Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit http://www.elsevier.com/authors/languageediting or contact authorsupport@elsevier.com for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Terms & Conditions http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions .

About IEP's peer review process:
Peer Review Process

Legal and Copyright

Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except in the form of an abstract or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all Authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.

Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a "Journal Publishing Agreement" (for more information on this and copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/copyright). Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together with a `Journal Publishing Agreement' form.

If excerpts from other copyrighted works are included, the Author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier has forms for use by Authors in these cases: contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Oxford, UK: phone (+44) 1865 843830, fax (+44) 1865 853333, e-mail permissions@elsevier.com. Requests may also be completed on-line via http://www.elsevier.com/locate/permissions

See http://www.elsevier.com/copyrightfor further information.

Preparation of submissions

Language Articles must be written in proper English

The first page of the manuscript should contain

(i) the title: be concise and informative
(ii) the name(s), institutional affiliation(s), and addresses of the author(s); Where the family name may be ambiguous (e.g., a double name), please indicate this clearly using appropriate script (capital cases as first letter of authors' first and surnames followed by lower cases). Authors' affiliation addresses should appear below the names. Provide the full postal and e-mail addresses of each Author.
Corresponding Author. Clearly indicate which author is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, and also post-publication. Full contact information should be provided.

Note that since IEP uses a single-blind system for review of submissions (referees remain anonymous to authors; authors are known to referees), it is not necessary to separate or otherwise disguise author(s) identification.

(iii) An abstract of approximately 100 words. A concise abstract should briefly state the purpose of the research and the main results.
(iv) Classification codes and keywords. Provide at least one standard JEL code http://www.aeaweb.org/journal/elclasjn.html and up to 5 additional keywords
(v) Acknowledgements and information on grants or other funds received in support of this research should be given in a first footnote. Any substantially relevant consulting relationships of the author(s) must also be disclosed. For more detailed information about the publisher's policies with respect to conflicts of interest and other ethical matters, see www.elsevier.com/publishingethicskit .

General formatting To ensure compatibility with the online submission system, the text should be in single-column format. Keep the layout of the text as simple as possible. Most formatting codes will be removed and replaced on processing of the article.

In preparing your article, you should use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. However, do not use your word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. Also, do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using your word processor's facility. When preparing tables, if you are using a table grid, use only one grid for each individual table and not a grid for each row. If no grid is used, use tabs, not spaces, to align columns. Do not import the figures into the text file but, instead, indicate their approximate locations directly in the electronic text. To avoid unnecessary errors you are strongly advised to use the "spellchecker" function of your word processor.

Please ensure that the letter 'l' and digit '1', and also the letter 'O' and digit '0' are used properly, and format your article (tabs, indents, etc.) consistently. Characters not available on your word processor (Greek letters, mathematical symbols, etc.) should not be left open but indicated by a unique code (e.g. gralpha, "alpha", @, etc., for the Greek letter "a"). Such codes should be used consistently throughout the entire text; a list of codes used should accompany the electronic manuscript.

Spacing: Submissions should be double or 1 1/2 spaced, with wide margins. All pages should be numbered consecutively. Footnotes should be kept to a minimum and numbered consecutively throughout the text with superscript Arabic numerals. Do not call footnotes from text headings, or unless essential, from inside a sentence. Displayed formulae should be numbered consecutively throughout the manuscript as (1), (2), etc. against the right-hand margin of the page.

Tables should be numbered consecutively in the text in Arabic numerals.

Illustrations Graphics files can be uploaded via http://ees.elsevier.com/IEPOL A guide on electronic artwork is available on http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions

Colour Illustrations Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution. If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these figures will appear in colour on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for colour in print or on the Web only. For further information on the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions .

Please note: Because of technical complications which can arise by converting colour figures to "grey scale" (for the printed version should you not opt for colour in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the colour illustrations.

References References to publications in the text should be as follows: 'Smith (1992) reported that...' or 'This problem has been studied previously (e.g., Smith et al., 1969)'. The author should make sure that there is a strict one-to-one correspondence between the names and years in the text and those on the reference list.

All citations in the text should refer to:

- Single Author: the Author's name (without initials, unless there is ambiguity) and the year of publication;

- Two Authors: both Authors' names and the year of publication;

- Three or more Authors: first Author's name followed by "et al." and the year of publication. Examples: "?.as demonstrated in (Allan, 1996a, 1996b, 1999; Allan and Jones, 1995)?". "Lee et al. (2000) have recently shown?."

The list of references should appear at the end of the main text (after any appendices, but before tables and legends for figures). It should be double spaced with authors listed in alphabetical order, and then further sorted chronologically if necessary. More than one reference from the same Author(s) in the same year must be identified by the letters "a", "b", "c", etc., placed after the year of publication. References should appear as follows:

For monographs:

De Bijl, P., Peitz, M., 2004. Regulation and Entry into Telecommunications Markets. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

For contributions to collective works: Armstrong, M., 2002. The theory of access pricing and interconnection. In: Cave M., Majumdar S., Vogelsang, I. (Eds.), Handbook of Telecommunications Economics. North Holland, Amsterdam, pp. 295-384.

For periodicals:

Shurmer, M., 1993. An investigation into sources of network externalities in the packaged PC software market. Information Economics and Policy 5, pp. 231-251.

*Note that journal titles should not be abbreviated.

For citations and listing of Web references:

As a minimum, the full URL should be given. Any further information, if known (Author names, dates, reference to a source publication, etc.), should also be given. Web references can be listed separately (e.g., after the reference list) under a different heading if desired, or can be included in the reference list.

For a further guide to referencing, see the Chicago Manual of Style.

Reprints

The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file of the article via e-mail. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use.

Submission checklist

• One Author designated as corresponding Author:
• E-mail address
• Full postal address
• Telephone and fax numbers
• All necessary files have been uploaded
• JEL code(s) and keywords
• All figure captions
• All tables (including title, description, footnotes)
• Manuscript has been "spellchecked"
• References are in the correct format for this journal
• All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa
• Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)

For any further information please contact the Author Support Department at authorsupport@elsevier.com.