JOURNAL INFORMATION
About the journal
USSMAD Review of Public Finance and Economics is an international, peer-reviewed journal published by the Fiscal Research Association. Its focus is the analysis of taxation, public expenditure, fiscal institutions and economic policy. The journal continues the USSMAD publication record established in 2021.
Aims
The journal examines how public resources are raised, allocated and governed, and how fiscal institutions and economic policies affect efficiency, distribution and social well-being. It considers research that explains economic mechanisms, evaluates policy choices and makes a defined contribution to scholarship for an international readership.
The readership includes researchers in public finance, economics and related disciplines, policy analysts and public-sector professionals. Articles are published in English and Turkish in two issues each year, in March and October. Access, licensing and author-charge arrangements are specified in the publishing policies.
Aims and scope
The journal considers original theoretical, empirical and interdisciplinary contributions with a substantive connection to public finance or economics. Submissions should state a clear research question, situate the contribution in the relevant literature and explain the analytical or policy implications of the findings beyond the setting examined.
Research areas
Taxation and taxpayer behaviour
Tax policy and administration; tax compliance, morale and evasion; international taxation; tax expenditures; and the economic, social and behavioural effects of tax systems.
Public expenditure and fiscal institutions
Budgeting, public spending, public debt and fiscal sustainability; local and regional finance; intergovernmental fiscal relations; public procurement and public-service financing.
Public economics and distribution
Inequality, redistribution, social protection, labour-market outcomes and the interaction of fiscal policy with growth, productivity, monetary conditions and household or firm behaviour.
Governance and political economy
Institutional quality, accountability, corruption, informal activity, illicit financial flows and political incentives where they directly inform public finance or economic outcomes.
Development and environmental policy
Development financing, green taxation and budgeting, climate-related public finance, sustainable development and the distributional consequences of environmental and economic transitions.
Methods and comparative analysis
Statistical and econometric methods, experimental and quasi-experimental designs, comparative institutional analysis, qualitative research and mixed methods addressing a substantive question within the journal’s remit.
Research approach and contribution
We value transparent research design, appropriate evidence and a clear account of uncertainty and limitations. Quantitative studies should justify measurement and identification choices and report relevant robustness checks; qualitative and conceptual studies should explain their analytical framework and evidential basis. Well-supported null or unexpected findings are considered on their scholarly merit.
Single-country and regional studies are considered where they advance analytical understanding or inform policy beyond the case studied. Descriptive reports and general business or management studies without a substantive connection to public finance or economics fall outside the journal’s current remit.
Article types
The journal considers original research articles, critical review articles and conceptual articles. Reviews should provide a transparent synthesis and a clear contribution; conceptual work should develop an argument grounded in scholarship. Article type, length and submission requirements are specified in the author guidelines.
Journal title transitionThe application to change the journal’s title is under review. The new title is presented here as the journal’s planned identity. Earlier issues retain their original title and bibliographic records.
Open access and author charges
Published articles are available through open access without subscription, registration or access charges. No embargo applies to access to published research. Readers may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search and link to the full text, and reuse it in accordance with the article licence. No charges apply to submission, editorial assessment, peer review or publication. The journal does not levy article processing or page charges, require paid services or require authors to become members of the publisher.
Copyright and CC BY 4.0
Authors retain copyright without restriction and grant the journal a non-exclusive right of first publication. Articles accepted under this policy are published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0). Reuse, redistribution and adaptation, including commercial use, are permitted with appropriate attribution, a licence link and an indication of changes. No exclusive commercial rights or copyright transfer is required. Third-party material excluded from the licence must be clearly identified with its rights information. Earlier articles retain the licence stated in their original published record; this policy does not retrospectively change those terms.
Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 ↗
Editorial process and independent peer review
The editorial office checks scope, completeness, originality, ethical declarations and preparation for anonymous review. A submission may be declined at this stage with an editorial explanation. Research, review and conceptual articles that pass screening are assessed by at least two independent experts using double-anonymous peer review. The editor considers the reports, methodological quality, contribution and author responses when deciding acceptance, revision or rejection. Reviews advise the editor; submission and favourable reports do not guarantee acceptance. Authors receive decisions and revision requests through their journal workspace. No fixed acceptance or publication time is guaranteed.
Editorial independence, conflicts and special issues
Editorial decisions are independent of membership, institutional affiliation, funding and commercial considerations. Authors, reviewers and editors must disclose relevant financial and non-financial interests. Editors recuse themselves from submissions involving their own work, close collaborators or other conflicts; an independent editor manages these submissions. Guest-editor credentials require approval and oversight by the editor-in-chief. Special-issue research undergoes the same independent review as regular research. Guest editors’ own submissions are independently handled and may constitute no more than 25% of a special issue.
Research ethics and publication integrity
Authors must submit original work that is not simultaneously under consideration elsewhere. Plagiarism, fabricated or falsified data, misleading attribution and redundant publication are unacceptable. Human-participant research requires the relevant ethics approval and informed consent; authors must identify the committee, decision date and reference, or justify why approval was not required. Similarity results support editorial judgement and are not used as a sole numerical acceptance criterion. Integrity concerns are assessed with appropriate reference to COPE guidance; the journal does not claim COPE membership. Relevant parties are given an opportunity to respond before a reasoned decision.
Authorship, contribution and funding
Authorship requires a substantive scholarly contribution, approval of the final manuscript and accountability for the work. All qualifying contributors should be included; other assistance should be acknowledged with permission. Contributions should be described using clear roles, preferably the CRediT taxonomy. The corresponding author confirms author order, contact details and all authors’ approval. Changes in authorship require a reasoned request and agreement from all affected authors. All funding sources, grant identifiers and the funder’s role must be declared. Where no external funding or competing interest exists, state this explicitly.
Data, reproducibility and responsible AI use
Every submission includes a data-availability statement. Authors should share supporting data, code and materials in a suitable repository where legal, ethical and confidentiality conditions permit; justified restrictions must be explained. AI tools cannot be authors. Authors remain responsible for accuracy, citations, originality and all AI-assisted output, and must disclose substantive AI use, including the tool and purpose. Reviewers and editors must not upload confidential manuscripts, personal data or review reports to external AI services without the necessary permission and safeguards. AI does not replace independent human editorial or peer-review judgement.
Complaints, appeals, corrections and retractions
Authors may send a reasoned appeal, identifying the manuscript reference and the points in dispute, to ussmad.journal@gmail.com. Complaints about conduct may use the same address. An editor without a conflict assesses the concern; a challenged editor does not adjudicate their own conduct. Published errors are addressed through clearly linked corrections, expressions of concern or retraction notices as appropriate. Notices explain the reason and responsibility and preserve the scholarly record. Retraction does not mean silent deletion. Confidentiality, fair hearing and research integrity guide the process.
Preservation and author self-archiving
The 2021–2026 publication archive and original full texts are available on DergiPark. This website provides a complete searchable catalogue and links to those records. Authors may deposit submitted, accepted and published versions of articles covered by this policy in institutional or subject repositories, with the original citation, version and applicable licence clearly identified. No embargo is imposed by the journal. Repository deposits supplement the publication record. Any participation in additional preservation services will be documented after enrolment is confirmed.
Confidentiality and personal information
Unpublished manuscripts and reports are confidential. Access is limited to the submitting author, authorised editorial staff and, for assigned anonymous files, the relevant reviewer. Reviewer identities and confidential editorial comments are not published in the public author directory. Account and profile information is used for registration, manuscript handling, review and journal administration. Public reading does not require an account. Authors and reviewers should supply only information necessary for these purposes and may contact the editorial office about their personal information.
Preprints, overlap and originality
Authors must disclose prior dissemination and related work so that editors can assess originality and overlap. A preprint or conference presentation does not by itself prevent consideration, provided its status is declared and the submitted article offers an appropriate scholarly contribution. Material already published as a journal article, redundant publication and simultaneous journal submission are not accepted. Editors may request earlier versions and an explanation of substantive differences.
Editorial decisions and revisions
Decisions may include editorial screening, external review, technical correction, minor or major revision, revise and resubmit, conditional acceptance, acceptance, rejection or withdrawal. The editor records the rationale and any revision deadline in the manuscript workspace. Authors should respond to each requested change and submit an anonymous revised file. Reviewer recommendations inform, but do not replace, editorial judgement. A request for revision is not a promise of acceptance.
Editorial submissions and responsible assessment
Submissions by editors or board members follow the same standards as other manuscripts and are handled by an independent editor without a relevant conflict. The author-editor does not select reviewers or decide their own submission. Editorial contributions are monitored to protect diversity and independence. Reviewer reports are assessed for relevance and quality; coercive citation, discrimination and decisions based on institutional prestige are not acceptable.
Funding, advertising and direct marketing
The journal charges no author fees and currently carries no paid advertising. Any future sponsorship or advertising arrangement must be clearly identified and kept separate from editorial decision-making. Solicitations must accurately describe the journal, its scope, charges and submission route, and must not promise acceptance, an impact factor or unverified index coverage.
Publisher, ownership and editorial contact
USSMAD Review of Public Finance and Economics is published by the Fiscal Research Association. Editor-in-chief: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Osman Geyik, Dicle University, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences. Editorial contact: ussmad.journal@gmail.com. The journal publishes in English and Turkish and issues two numbers per year, in March and October. Editorial decisions are based on scholarly merit. Advertising or direct marketing does not influence manuscript decisions; the website currently carries no paid advertisements.
