The Series uses editorial and compliance screening to decide whether an eligible working paper is ready for public dissemination. This process is not peer review, independent replication, or institutional certification of the findings.
Stage 1: Intake and eligibility
The Series confirms:
- UNLV undergraduate eligibility at the time the work was completed;
- a UNLV faculty sponsor;
- a substantive economics-related scope;
- a complete submission packet;
- author and coauthor identities and approval;
- authorship and contribution attestations;
- rights and permissions documentation; and
- required ethics, data, accessibility, and public-profile consent records.
Incomplete submissions do not proceed to a publication decision.
Stage 2: Editorial screening
Non-conflicted editors review the research question, contribution, evidence or data, methodology, support for conclusions, citations, disclosures, writing, presentation, and overall research readiness.
Screening may identify unclear claims, unsupported conclusions, citation problems, presentation barriers, or revisions needed before publication. It does not guarantee correctness, reproduce the analysis, or certify originality beyond the checks the Board documents.
Stage 3: Compliance screening
The Series checks for:
- authorship and originality attestations;
- copyright and third-party permissions;
- material AI-use disclosure;
- author and editor conflicts;
- applicable human-subjects or research-ethics documentation;
- restricted-data compliance;
- document accessibility; and
- public data and code availability statements.
The Series does not issue IRB approval or decide formal research-misconduct proceedings. Applicable questions are referred to the UNLV Office of Research Integrity or another responsible university office.
Stage 4: Editorial decision
The possible outcomes are:
- Accepted for publication
- Accepted subject to specified revisions
- Revise and resubmit
- Deferred to a later issue
- Declined
Acceptance requires at least two non-conflicted voting editors, including at least one Faculty Editor. A faculty sponsor cannot be the paper’s sole approving editor. See Editorial Governance and Conflicts of Interest & Recusal.
Stage 5: Production
After the author satisfies the decision conditions, production includes final metadata verification, accessible-document review, citation preparation, OAsis submission or record coordination, DOI confirmation where assigned, custom paper-page publication, issue release, sitemap updates, link checks, and a version record.
Publication is complete only when the released metadata and links have been checked. Repository processing times may differ from the Series’ editorial timeline.
After publication
Working papers may be corrected or revised. Material changes require the authority and notice described in Corrections, Revisions & Versioning. Concerns that may require a status notice, restriction, or withdrawal follow the Expressions of Concern, Withdrawal & Takedown policy.
An author or faculty sponsor may appeal on the grounds stated in the Appeals policy.