About the Journal

Print ISSN:2959-0000

Online ISSN:2959-0019

The Asian Bulletin of Contemporary Issues in Economics and Finance (ABCIEF) aims to advance knowledge and practice in the field of economics and finance by publishing high-quality, peer-reviewed research. The journal's objective is to foster global perspectives and stimulate further research by encouraging the exchange of ideas on significant international issues, particularly those relevant to Asian economies.

ABCIEF covers a wide range of contemporary issues in Asian economics and finance, publishing empirical, conceptual, and methodological articles. The journal provides a valuable forum for academics and practitioners to share recent developments and interdisciplinary scholarly work that has global relevance. We invite contributions from researchers worldwide, focusing on topics that contribute to the development of corporations, institutions, and society as a whole, with a special emphasis on Asian economies. This journal is an ideal platform for researchers, academics, and professionals looking to engage with cutting-edge economic and financial discussions on a global scale.  We encourage contributions from all over the world, with a particular focus on Asian economies.

Publication Frequency

ABCIEF publishes anually (one issues a year). All papers shall be published as soon as they have been accepted, by adding them to the "Current Issue" section with a DOI.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content based on the belief that making research freely available to the public facilitates a more effective and efficient global exchange of knowledge and research products.

Article Processing Charges

ABCIEF guarantees that no university library or individual reader will ever be required to purchase a subscription or pay pay-per-view fees in order to access articles in the journal's electronic version. To promote the publication of meritorious research across the board, no submission or publication fees are required for journal publication.

Business Model

Open Access is free for both authors and readers, decoupling scientific and financial concerns. ABCIEF is published by the Asian Academy of Business and Social Science Research (AABSSR), a non-profit organization; all editorial board members and reviewers contribute to the journal pro bono. AABSSR is a comprehensive academic publishing portal and training platform managed by active researchers that facilitate the journal's publication. The service is based on two fundamental principles: transparency and quality.

We are especially thankful to PKP  for providing the Open Journal System platform and sponsoring ABCIEF   for Crossref DOI.

Archiving

ABCIEF  allows and encourages authors to deposit both their pre- and post-prints in Open-Access institutional archives or repositories. All authors hold full copyright and self-archiving rights. Authors are allowed to archive their articles in open-access repositories as “post-prints”. In order to digitally preserve all published scholarly content, ABCIEF commits to regularly submit the metadata of all its journals to the PKP Preservation Network (PN). This is to ensure that the published content by ABCIEF Publishing remains available to the community despite any accidental loss of data in its personal archival records. ABCIEF Publishing has further ensured that the metadata of its open-access journal is compliant with well-known repository services and their digital crawlers may regularly collect it for record and preservation.

Peer Review Process

ABCIEF uses a double-blind review, which means that both the reviewer and author’s identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. To facilitate this, authors need to ensure that their manuscripts are prepared in a way that does not disclose any aspect of their identity. To comply with this requirement, please ensure the following when submitting to the journal:

  1. Submit the Title Page containing the Authors’ details and a Blinded Manuscript with no author details included as 2 separate files.
  2. After a paper is submitted to ABCIEF, a journal editor screens the manuscript to generate a plagiarism report using Turnitin. If the manuscript complies with the journal’s requirements and plagiarism is below the 10% threshold, the handling editor sends invitations to individuals who he or she believes would be appropriate reviewers. If a paper does not fulfill the journal’s criteria, the handling editor shall reject the submission.
  3. Potential reviewers consider the invitation in light of their individual expertise, potential areas of conflict of interest, and issues of availability. Following this, they may accept or decline to review a particular submission. If possible, when declining, a reviewer is encouraged to recommend alternative reviewers. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewer may feel comfortable rejecting the paper without further review. Otherwise, the reviewer shall continue to review the paper several times, taking notes so as to conduct a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal, with a recommendation to accept or reject it – or else, with a request for revision (usually flagged as either major or minor) before being reconsidered for publication.
  4. Lastly, members of the editorial board of ABCIEF shall consider the peer reviewers’ reports and make the final decision to accept or reject the manuscript for publication. If accepted, the paper is sent to production. If the article is rejected or sent back for either major or minor revision, the handling editor is encouraged to include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. At this point, reviewers should also be sent an e-mail informing them of the outcome of their review.

Ethical Policy

All research articles published by the Asian Bulletin of Contemporary Issues in Economics and Finance (ABCIEF) are subject to rigorous ethical standards. ABCIEF endorses the Code of Conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as well as the COPE International Standards for Editors and Authors Guidelines. 

Editorship — ABCIEF strongly supports the mission of the COPE Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

Authorship — All those who have made a valuable and significant contribution shall be given the chance to be cited as authors. Other individuals who have contributed to the work may also be acknowledged. Articles should include a full list of the current institutional affiliations of all authors, both academic and corporate.

Plagiarism — The section editor of the assigned article will immediately screen all articles submitted for publication in the journal. All submissions we receive are checked by using online tools for plagiarism detection such as Turnitin.

Corrections and retractions - All authors are obliged to inform and cooperate with journal editors to provide prompt retractions or correction of errors in published works.

Language- Papers written in English are acceptable to ABCIEF.

The journal will issue retractions if:

  • There is clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g. data fabrication) or honest error (e.g. miscalculation or experimental error);
  • The findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission, or justification (i.e. cases of redundant publication);
  • It constitutes plagiarism;
  • It reports unethical research.

The journal will issue errata if:

  • A small portion of an otherwise reliable publication proves to be misleading (especially because of honest error);
  • The author list is incorrect (i.e., a deserving author has been omitted or somebody who does not meet authorship criteria has been included).

Other forms of misconduct include failure to meet clear ethical and legal requirements such as misrepresentation of interests, breach of confidentiality, lack of informed consent, and abuse of research subjects or materials. Misconduct also includes improper dealing with infringements, such as attempts to cover up misconduct and reprisals on whistle-blowers. The primary responsibility for handling research misconduct is in the hands of those who employ the researchers. If a possible misconduct is brought to our attention, we shall seek advice from the referees and members of the Editorial Board. If there is evidence, we shall seek to resolve the matter by appropriate corrections by either refusing to consider an author's work for publication in the future, for a given period and/or by contacting affected authors and editors of other journals.

Conflict of Interest

ABCIEF requires all authors and reviewers to declare any conflicts of interest that may be inherent in their submissions. Conflict of interest for a given manuscript exists when a participant in the peer review and publication process – author, reviewer, or editor – has ties to activities that could inappropriately influence his or her judgment, regardless of whether or not judgment is in fact affected. Financial relationships with industry, for example, through employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, and expert testimony, either directly or through immediate family, are usually considered to be the most notable conflicts of interest. However, conflicts can occur for other reasons, such as personal relationships, academic competition, and intellectual passion.

Editors — Editors may request that authors of a study funded by an agency with a proprietary or financial interest in the outcome be required to sign the following statement: "I had full access to all of the data in this study and I take complete responsibility for the integrity of the data and the accuracy of the data analysis."

Authors — When they submit a manuscript, whether an article or a letter, authors are responsible for recognizing and disclosing financial and other conflicts of interest that might bias their work. All financial support for the work and/or other financial and personal connections to the work shall be clearly acknowledged by the author in the manuscript.

Reviewers — External peer reviewers should inform the editors of any conflicts of interest that could bias their review of the manuscript, and shall refrain from reviewing specific manuscripts if they deem it appropriate. The editors must be made aware of reviewers’ conflicts of interest in order to interpret the reviews and determine whether the reviewer should be disqualified. Reviewers shall not use the findings of any research work prior to its publication to further their own interests.

Copyright and Licensing

Authors shall retain the copyrights to the article. Author(s) grant ABCIEF   an irrevocable, non-exclusive license to publish the article electronically and in print format, and to identify itself as the original publisher. Author(s) can grant any third party the right to use the article freely as long as its original authors and citation details are identified. The article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License. Unless otherwise stated, associated published material shall be distributed under the same license.

You are free to:

  • Share —copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
  • Adapt —remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially.

Under the following conditions:

  • Attribution —You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and clearly indicate if any changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licenser endorses you or your use.
  • No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.