Online submission
All submissions are handled online at http://ees.elsevier.com/empfin Once you have logged on as author using your JOURNAL username and password you will be guided through the creation and uploading of your files. The system automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance. All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the Author's homepage only. Therefore users need to keep their contact coordinates on the registration page up-to-date with the "UPDATE MY INFORMATION" option.

Submission Fees
Each submission must be accompanied by a submission fee of US$ 125. Submissions will only be considered after payment of the submission fee via submissiongate . Payment should show the title of the paper. Submission fee is non-refundable and a paper may be rejected by the Editor without being sent for review, should a paper be inconsistent with the Aims and Scope of the Journal as set out on the Journal website, or not adhere to the style requirements as outlined in the Guide for Authors.

Please follow these two steps:
1. Upload your manuscript onto the Elsevier Electronic Submission.
2. Go to submissiongate in order to pay the submission fee.

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 as part of a published lecture 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and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.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 transfer copyright. See http://www.elsevier.com/copyright for more information.

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

Word processors
Save the file in the native format of the word processor used. 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 the article. In particular, do not use the word processor's options to justify text or to hyphenate words. However, do use bold face, italics, subscripts, superscripts etc. Do not embed "graphically designed" equations or tables, but prepare these using the 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.

Article
Language. Articles must be written in good English

Language Polishing. Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting services pre- and post-submission please visit http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/languagepolishing 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/wps/find/termsconditions.cws_home/termsconditions

Title. Concise and informative. Avoid abbreviations and formulae.

Author names and affiliations. 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). The Present the Authors' affiliation addresses (where the actual work was done) below the names. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript letter immediately after the Author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Provide the full postal address of each affiliation, including the country name, and, if available, the e-mail address of each Author.

Corresponding Author. Clearly indicate who is willing to handle correspondence at all stages of refereeing and publication, also post-publication. Ensure that telephone and fax numbers (with country and area code) are provided in addition to the e-mail address and the complete postal address. Abstract. A concise abstract should briefly state the purpose of the research and the main results. An abstract is often presented separate from the article, so it must be able to stand alone.

Classification codes and keywords. Provide at least one standard JEL code http://www.aeaweb.org/journal/elclasjn.html and up to 5 additional keywords.

Illustrations. Graphics files can be uploaded via http://ees.elsevier.com/empfin
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
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"

In the references list references should be arranged first alphabetically 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. Examples:

Reference to a journal publication:
-Griffiths W, Judge G. Testing and estimating location vectors when the error covariance matrix is unknown. Journal of Econometrics 1992;54; 121-138
(note that journal names are not to be abbreviated).

Reference to a book:
-Hawawini G, Swary I. Mergers and acquisitions in the U.S. banking industry: Evidence from the capital markets. North-Holland: Amsterdam; 1990.

Reference to a chapter in an edited book:
-Brunner K, Melzer AH 1990. Money Supply. In: Friedman BM, Hahn FH (Eds), Handbook of monetary economics, vol.1. North-Holland: Amsterdam; 1990. p. 357-396.

Citing 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.

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.