Online submission
All submissions are handled online at http://ees.elsevier.com/chieco. Once you have logged on as author using your CER 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.

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and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without the written consent of the Publisher.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/locate/authorrights 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 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. Since surnames are capitalized, Chinese names may either be in Chinese order (surname first) or English order (surname last). Surnames listed in the text or references are not capitalized.

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/ejpe A guide on electronic artwork is available on http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.

Tables. Tables should be numbered consecutively in the text in Arabic numerals and printed on separate sheets. Any manuscript which does not conform to the above instructions may be returned for the necessary revision before publication.

Footnotes. The use of footnotes should be kept to a minimum and numbered consecutively throughout the text with superscript Arabic numerals.

References. References to publications 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 list. 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 and listed in alphabetical order by author's name.

References should appear as follows:

For monographs
Hawawini, G., Swary, I., 1990. Mergers and Acquisitions in the U.S. Banking Industry: Evidence from the Capital Markets. North-Holland, Amsterdam.

For contributions to collective works
Brunner, K., Meltzer, A.H., 1990. Money supply, in: Friedman, B.M., Hahn, F.H. (Eds.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, Vol. 1. North-Holland, Amsterdam, pp. 357--396.

For periodicals
Griffiths, W., Judge, G., 1992. Testing and estimating location vectors when the error covariance matrix is unknown. Journal of Econometrics 54, 121--138.

Chinese names may be listed in the references with the surname first, as follows:

Liu Y.H., Chew S.B., and Li W.Z., Education, experience and productivity of labor in China's township and village enterprises: The case of Jiangsu province, China Economic Review 9, 47-58.

Note that journal titles should not be abbreviated. 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.

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)

Author Proofs and reprints

Page proofs will be sent electronically to the corresponding author. Proofs should be corrected carefully; the responsibility for detecting errors lies with the author. Corrections should be restricted to instances in which the proof is at variance with the manuscript. Extensive alterations will be charged.

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.

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