Car review process

Review Process (car-review-process)

When to trigger

• Before submitting, to calibrate expectations for CAR's process and timeline
• A decision letter arrived and you need to read its signals before responding
• You are unsure who decides at CAR (reviewers vs. subject Editor vs. EIC)
• You are weighing whether to appeal a rejection

How CAR review works

• Double-anonymous (double-blind) peer review. The manuscript file is blind (no author-identifying information), with a separate title page. (The "double-anonymous" label is inferred from CAR's documented blind-manuscript and reviewer-anonymity requirements; 待核实 for the exact CAR phrasing.)
• Two reviewers. The Editor normally assigns two reviewers, who provide reports and recommendations.
• Who decides. The assigned subject Editor (one of ~24 handling editors) makes the disposition decision; the Editor-in-Chief (Anup Srivastava) reviews and approves all acceptance decisions. Deputy EICs (Demers, Edwards, Stolowy) and Consulting Editors support the team.
• Reviewer conduct. Reviewers must report conflicts of interest and are actively discouraged from trying to identify authors. From Jan 1, 2024, reviewers are prohibited from using generative-AI tools in the review process.

Reading a CAR decision letter

• Reject / desk reject. A desk reject on/after Apr 1, 2021 carries a 50% fee refund. Treat substantive rejects as venue or framing feedback; do not resubmit the same paper without a major rethink.
• Revise and resubmit (R&R). The expected path to acceptance at a top accounting journal. Map each reviewer's and the Editor's points; the subject Editor's letter signals which concerns are first-order. Invited revisions pay no further submission fee.
• Conditional acceptance / acceptance. The EIC must approve; expect final-version requirements (code archiving, data availability statement, CAR Style Guide conformance, author X/Twitter handles for promotion).

Decoding the subject Editor's letter

At CAR the subject Editor's cover letter — not the raw reviewer reports — is the authoritative map of what a revision must do. Reviewers raise many points; the Editor tells you which are dispositive. Read the letter in this order:

• The framing paragraph. If the Editor restates your contribution in their own words, that framing is the one you must satisfy; a revision that fights it usually fails. If they hedge the contribution ("the paper may be of interest to…"), treat it as a first-order concern, not a courtesy.
• Ordering and emphasis. Points the Editor lists first, or explicitly endorses from a reviewer, outrank the reviewer's own ordering. A reviewer's minor typo list is not equal to the Editor's identification worry.
• Conflicting reviewers. When R1 and R2 disagree (common in CAR's method-agnostic mix — e.g., an archival reviewer wanting more identification, an analytical reviewer wanting cleaner assumptions), the Editor's letter signals which side to privilege; do not average them.

Micro-example. Editor writes: "R2's concern about the parallel-trends assumption is central; R1's request for additional institutional detail is secondary." → Your response memo leads with a new pre-trends test and event-study plot, and handles the institutional detail briefly. Inverting that order reads as missing the point.

Appeals (CAR-specific)

CAR has a formal appeals process with a built-in one-month waiting period, a six-month deadline, and a new submission fee required to appeal. Appeal only with a substantive, specific basis (a clear factual error or misreading), not general disagreement.

Checklist

• Confirm the manuscript was blind so review is genuinely double-anonymous
• Identify the decision type and the subject Editor's first-order concerns
• Separate reviewer-1 vs. reviewer-2 themes; note where they conflict
• If acceptance is near, line up code, data availability statement, and Style Guide items
• If appealing, verify the basis, the one-month wait, the six-month window, and the appeal fee

Anti-patterns

• Treating an R&R as an acceptance — the EIC still must approve, and reviewers can re-reject.
• Appealing on disagreement rather than a demonstrable error, and ignoring the fee/timing rules.
• Guessing the reviewers' identities or asking them to — both cut against CAR's anonymity norms.

Output format

【Decision type】desk reject / reject / R&R / conditional accept ...
【Decider】subject Editor disposition; EIC approves acceptance
【First-order concerns】(from the Editor's letter) ...
【Reviewer themes】R1 vs. R2; conflicts ...
【Appeal?】basis / one-month wait / six-month deadline / new fee ...
【Next step】car-rebuttal (on R&R)