Publication Ethics and Research Integrity

Modern Finance (MF) is committed to responsible editorial practice, transparent publication procedures, and the integrity of the scholarly record. This publication ethics policy has been developed for MF and reflects the journal’s own editorial procedures. It supersedes any earlier ethics wording used on the journal website. In applying this policy, MF is guided, where relevant, by widely recognized standards and recommendations, including those of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE), and the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME). These external standards inform MF’s procedures, but the responsibility for applying them in editorial practice rests with the journal, its editors, and its publisher. Allegations of misconduct are assessed carefully, fairly, and proportionately, with the aim of protecting authors, reviewers, readers, and the reliability of the published literature.

Duties of the MF Editors

• Fair evaluation. Editors evaluate submitted manuscripts on the basis of scholarly quality, originality, relevance to the journal’s aims and scope, methodological soundness, clarity of presentation, and contribution to finance research. Editorial decisions are not influenced by the authors’ race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, institutional affiliation, or political views.
• Confidentiality of submissions. Manuscripts submitted to MF are treated as confidential documents. The Editor-in-Chief, handling editors, editorial staff, and any person involved in the editorial process may share information about a submission only with those directly involved in its evaluation, including the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, editorial advisers, and the publisher where necessary.
• Disclosure and conflicts of interest. Editors and reviewers must not use unpublished material, data, ideas, empirical results, models, code, or interpretations from a submitted manuscript for their own research or personal advantage unless the authors have provided explicit permission. Editors who have a financial, professional, personal, institutional, or academic conflict of interest in relation to a submission must not participate in its assessment.
• Publication decisions. The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for the final decision on manuscripts submitted to MF. Decisions are based on the reviewers’ reports, the editors’ assessment, the journal’s editorial policies, and applicable legal and ethical considerations, including those relating to copyright, plagiarism, defamation, confidentiality, and research integrity. The Editor-in-Chief may consult other editors, editorial board members, or reviewers before reaching a decision.
• Editorial impartiality. When a manuscript is submitted by an editor, editorial board member, or person with a close relationship to a member of the editorial team, the manuscript is handled by an independent editor without the relevant conflict. Such submissions follow the same peer-review standards as all other submissions.
• Scientific integrity. The editorial team is responsible for maintaining the accuracy and credibility of the journal’s published content. When concerns arise before or after publication, the editors assess the matter and, where appropriate, issue corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, or other notices in order to preserve the integrity of the scholarly record.

Duties of Peer Reviewers

• Contribution to editorial decisions. Peer review supports the Editor-in-Chief and handling editors in evaluating submissions. Reviewers are asked to provide constructive, evidence-based assessments of the manuscript’s research question, theoretical contribution, data, methods, interpretation, robustness, presentation, and relevance to MF’s aims and scope.
• Reviewer expertise and availability. Invited reviewers should accept an invitation only when they have the appropriate expertise, sufficient time, and no relevant conflict of interest. Reviewers who are unable to provide a timely or qualified review should inform the Editor-in-Chief or editorial office promptly.
• Standards of objectivity. Reviews should be written in a professional and respectful manner. Criticism should address the manuscript and its evidence, methods, interpretation, and contribution. Personal criticism of the authors is not acceptable.
• Confidentiality. Manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential. Reviewers must not share, copy, quote from, discuss, or use the manuscript or any related materials except with the prior permission of the Editor-in-Chief.
• Conflict of interest and disclosure. Reviewers must disclose any circumstances that could affect their impartiality, including recent collaboration, institutional connection, personal relationship, direct competition, financial interest, or other professional connection with the authors, funders, companies, data providers, or institutions related to the submission. Information obtained through peer review must not be used for personal, professional, or commercial advantage.
• Acknowledgment of sources. Reviewers should alert the editors to relevant literature that appears to be missing, as well as to any substantial similarity between the submitted manuscript and published or unpublished work of which they are aware. Suggestions for additional citations should be based on scholarly relevance, not on personal, strategic, or metric-related citation interests.

Duties of Authors

• Originality and plagiarism. Authors must submit original work and must properly acknowledge the work, words, ideas, data, figures, tables, methods, and interpretations of others. Text copied from other sources must be clearly quoted or otherwise identified and appropriately cited. Authors are also responsible for avoiding inappropriate paraphrasing and unattributed reuse of their own previously published work.
• Reporting standards. Authors are responsible for presenting their research accurately, clearly, and completely. Empirical studies should describe the data, sample construction, variable definitions, assumptions, models, estimation procedures, robustness checks, and other methodological choices in sufficient detail to allow readers and, where possible, other researchers to understand and evaluate the results. Deliberate misrepresentation, fabrication, falsification, or selective reporting of results is unacceptable.
• Multiple, redundant, or concurrent publications. Authors must not submit the same manuscript to more than one journal at the same time. They must also disclose any closely related manuscripts, working papers, conference papers, preprints, reports, or prior publications that overlap substantially with the submitted work. Any legitimate reuse of material must be transparent and properly referenced.
• Acknowledgment of sources. Authors should cite the work that is relevant to the development, positioning, methods, and interpretation of their study. References should be accurate, balanced, and used for scholarly purposes. Authors should not include irrelevant citations or citations intended primarily to influence citation metrics.
• Authorship of a manuscript. Authorship should reflect substantial intellectual contribution to the research. All listed authors should have contributed meaningfully to the conception, design, execution, analysis, interpretation, or writing of the study; should approve the submitted and accepted versions; and should agree to be accountable for their contribution. Contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be recognized in the Acknowledgement section where appropriate. The corresponding author is responsible for ensuring that all appropriate authors are included, that no inappropriate authors are listed, and that all co-authors have approved the submission.
• Disclosure and conflicts of interest. Authors must disclose financial, professional, personal, institutional, or other relationships that could reasonably be perceived as influencing the research, interpretation, or presentation of the manuscript. All sources of funding and other material support should be disclosed.
• Fundamental errors in published works. If authors discover a significant error or inaccuracy in their published article, they must promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief or editorial office and cooperate with the journal to correct the article, issue an erratum or corrigendum, or retract the work where necessary.
• Data availability and study registration. MF supports transparency and reproducibility in empirical research. Authors are expected to state whether the data and code underlying their results are available, where they can be accessed, and whether any restrictions apply. For research designs where preregistration is appropriate, including experiments and survey-based studies, authors are encouraged to provide registration details.
• Ethical oversight. Authors are responsible for ensuring that their research complies with applicable ethical and legal requirements. Studies involving human participants, surveys, experiments, confidential data, proprietary databases, identifiable individual or institutional information, or non-public company information must follow appropriate ethical procedures, including consent, confidentiality protection, data-use permissions, and approval by a relevant ethics committee or institutional review body where required.

Data Sharing, Transparency, and Reproducibility Policy

Modern Finance promotes transparent reporting and encourages research practices that allow readers to understand, evaluate, and, where feasible, reproduce published findings.

• Data and code availability. Authors of empirical or quantitative studies should include a Data Availability Statement explaining whether the data, code, and other materials needed to reproduce the main results are available. When sharing is possible, authors are encouraged to deposit replication materials in stable repositories such as institutional repositories, Zenodo, OSF, Dataverse, or comparable services.
• Permissible exceptions. MF recognizes that full sharing may not be possible when data are proprietary, confidential, commercially licensed, legally restricted, or subject to privacy obligations. This may apply, for example, to data obtained from commercial financial databases, confidential surveys, private agreements, or restricted institutional sources. In such cases, authors should explain the restriction clearly and, where feasible, describe how qualified researchers may obtain access through lawful and independent channels.
• Reproducibility standards. Manuscripts should provide enough detail to allow readers to understand how the results were obtained. This includes clear descriptions of sample construction, data sources, variable definitions, model specifications, estimation procedures, portfolio construction rules, robustness checks, and other relevant methodological choices.
• Editorial oversight. The editors may request additional information about data, code, documentation, or the Data Availability Statement during review or after acceptance. Incomplete or misleading transparency statements may lead to revision, delay, rejection, correction, or other editorial action.
• Study registration. For research designs where preregistration improves transparency, such as experiments, surveys, and pre-specified interventions, authors are encouraged to provide the registry name, registration date, and registration link.

Publisher's Duties and Confirmation

The publisher supports the editorial independence of Modern Finance and works with the Editor-in-Chief to safeguard the integrity of the journal. The publisher does not interfere with editorial decisions on individual manuscripts. Where credible concerns arise regarding misconduct, plagiarism, fraudulent publication, undisclosed conflicts of interest, serious errors, or manipulation of the publication process, the publisher and editorial team will cooperate to assess the matter and determine the appropriate response.

Possible responses include requesting clarification from authors, consulting independent experts, notifying institutions or funders where appropriate, issuing corrections or expressions of concern, retracting affected articles, and updating published records. The publisher also supports the editorial team in maintaining clear policies, transparent procedures, and appropriate records of ethical concerns and their resolution.

Research Misconduct and Breaches of Publication Ethics

Research misconduct includes, but is not limited to, fabrication of data or results, falsification or manipulation of research materials or analyses, plagiarism, inappropriate image or figure manipulation, deliberate misreporting of methods or findings, and the concealment of material information relevant to the evaluation of a manuscript.

Breaches of publication ethics include undisclosed conflicts of interest; duplicate or redundant submission; inappropriate authorship, including guest, gift, or ghost authorship; failure to acknowledge contributors; citation manipulation; misrepresentation of publication status; undisclosed substantial overlap with prior work; misuse of confidential peer-review information; and failure to comply with applicable ethical requirements for research involving human participants, confidential data, proprietary information, or restricted data sources.

MF considers each case according to the nature of the concern, the available evidence, the stage of publication, and the potential effect on the scholarly record. Authors submitting to MF agree to cooperate with editorial inquiries and to provide relevant documentation when reasonably requested. Depending on the outcome, editorial measures may include rejection of a manuscript, correction of the published record, publication of an expression of concern, retraction, notification of institutions or funders, or temporary restriction from submitting to the journal.

Plagiarism, Redundant Publication, and Citation Manipulation

Plagiarism includes the unattributed use of another person’s words, ideas, data, figures, tables, methods, or interpretations. It also includes close paraphrasing without appropriate acknowledgment and the reuse of one’s own previously published material without transparent disclosure and citation where required. The plagiarism detection in MF is governed by a separate Plagiarism Policy, available here.

Redundant or duplicate publication occurs when a manuscript, or a substantial part of its data, analysis, figures, tables, text, or conclusions, overlaps with work that has already been published or is under consideration elsewhere without transparent disclosure and appropriate citation. Authors must inform the Editor-in-Chief in the cover letter about any related work, in any language, that could be viewed as overlapping with the submission. This includes preprints, working papers, conference papers, earlier reports, manuscripts under review, and manuscripts accepted or published elsewhere. Legitimate prior dissemination, such as a working paper or conference abstract, should be disclosed and cited where appropriate.

Modern Finance does not permit citation practices designed to distort scholarly metrics or misrepresent the relevance of prior literature. Prohibited practices include coercive citation requests, excessive self-citation, citation cartels, irrelevant citations added primarily to increase citation counts, and reviewer or editor requests for citations that are not justified by the content of the manuscript. Suspected citation manipulation may lead to revision, rejection, correction, retraction, or further editorial investigation.

Handling Allegations of Misconduct

Modern Finance takes concerns about publication ethics seriously, whether they are raised before or after publication. Concerns may be submitted to the Editor-in-Chief or to the editorial office at contact@mf-journal.com. Reports may be made by authors, reviewers, readers, institutions, or other parties. The journal treats such communications confidentially to the extent possible and protects good-faith complainants from inappropriate disclosure.

Modern Finance uses reasonable editorial procedures to identify and prevent misconduct. These procedures may include plagiarism screening, editorial checks, reviewer assessment, requests for data or code, and post-publication review where concerns are raised.

When a potential case of misconduct is identified, the Editor-in-Chief or an independent handling editor conducts an initial assessment. The journal may request an explanation, data, code, documentation, permission records, ethics approval information, or other supporting material from the authors. Authors will normally be given an opportunity to respond to the concern. Where the matter cannot be resolved through editorial assessment alone, MF may seek advice from independent experts or contact the authors’ institutions, funders, data providers, or other relevant bodies. The journal’s aim is not to conduct a legal investigation, but to determine what editorial action is necessary to protect the accuracy and reliability of the published record. Possible outcomes include no action, manuscript rejection, correction, expression of concern, retraction, or notification of relevant institutions.

Corrections, Expressions of Concern, and Retractions

Modern Finance is committed to correcting the scholarly record when published content is found to contain significant errors, unreliable findings, ethical problems, or other issues that affect the interpretation or integrity of the work. The appropriate notice depends on the nature and seriousness of the problem.

• Corrections. A correction, erratum, or corrigendum may be published when an article contains an error that does not invalidate the main findings but requires clarification or amendment.
• Expressions of concern. An expression of concern may be published when serious concerns have been raised but the available evidence is inconclusive, an investigation is ongoing, or relevant information is not yet available.
• Retractions. A retraction may be issued when the findings are unreliable, the article involves serious misconduct or major error, the work has been published elsewhere without appropriate disclosure, or the article otherwise seriously breaches publication ethics.

Notices will be linked to the affected article where possible and will state the reason for the editorial action. The purpose of these notices is to maintain the accuracy and transparency of the scholarly record, not to punish authors.

Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

Modern Finance recognizes that authors may use artificial intelligence-based tools, including large language models, grammar tools, coding assistants, statistical programming aids, and image-generation tools, during research and manuscript preparation. Such use must be transparent and must not compromise the originality, accuracy, confidentiality, or integrity of the work.

All submitted manuscripts must include an “AI Use Statement.” Authors should state whether AI-based tools were used in writing, editing, translation, coding, data analysis, figure preparation, literature screening, reference management, or any other part of the research or publication process.

Authors remain fully responsible for all content submitted to MF, including the accuracy of facts, citations, data, code, figures, statistical results, interpretations, and conclusions. Authors must verify any AI-assisted output and must ensure that confidential, copyrighted, proprietary, or personal data are not entered into AI tools in violation of law, contract, consent, or ethical obligations.

Examples of acceptable AI Use Statements include:

“The authors confirm that no AI tools were used in the writing, editing, data analysis, or figure generation of this manuscript.”

“The authors used ChatGPT (OpenAI) for grammar and language refinement. All content was reviewed, edited, and verified by the authors.”

“The authors used AI-based coding assistants to help debug scripts. All research design choices, model specifications, analyses, and interpretations were made and verified by the authors.”

AI tools cannot be listed as authors or co-authors because they cannot take responsibility for the integrity of the work. Failure to disclose material AI use may be treated as a breach of publication ethics and may result in rejection, correction, expression of concern, or retraction, depending on the circumstances.

Editorial Complaints and Appeals

Authors, reviewers, readers, or other parties may submit complaints about editorial procedures, publication ethics, journal staff, editorial board members, peer review, conflicts of interest, corrections, or other matters concerning Modern Finance. Complaints should be sent to the Editor-in-Chief at adam.zaremba@ue.poznan.pl and/or to the editorial office at contact@mf-journal.com. The Editor-in-Chief or editorial office will normally acknowledge receipt within seven days and explain how the complaint will be considered.

MF aims to handle complaints fairly, confidentially, and without retaliation against good-faith complainants. Where possible, the journal seeks to resolve complaints within 60 days. If the complainant is not satisfied with the outcome, the matter may be escalated to another member of the editorial board, an independent adviser, or the publisher, depending on the nature of the concern. Cases involving serious ethical issues may be reviewed with reference to COPE, ICMJE, WAME, or other appropriate guidance.