Retraction, Withdrawal, and Correction (R-W-C) Policy

Research Integrity & Scholarly Record

A retraction may be issued when published findings, analyses, interpretations, or evidence are considered unreliable, invalid, or seriously compromised by error or misconduct.

• Fabrication, falsification, manipulated data, major analytical error, or serious miscalculation;
• Redundant or duplicate publication;
• Plagiarism, manipulated authorship, or other serious ethical violations;
• Research conducted without required ethical approval where applicable;
• Manipulation of peer review or other publication processes;
• Fabricated economic indicators, survey responses, financial data, trade data, labor statistics, policy evidence, or research sources; or
• Serious misrepresentation of economic, financial, development, market, or public-policy findings.

Retraction notices identify the affected article, explain the reason factually, remain publicly available, and are linked to the original article. Where possible, the original article remains accessible with a clear indication that it has been retracted.

Withdrawal is generally limited to manuscripts that have not yet become the final Version of Record (VoR).

Before Publication

An accepted but unpublished manuscript may be withdrawn in exceptional circumstances, such as duplicate submission, major errors that invalidate the results, serious ethical or authorship violations, unresolved copyright concerns, or substantial problems involving confidential financial, institutional, or economic data.

After Publication

Removal of a Version of Record is strongly discouraged and considered only in exceptional circumstances involving legal requirements, privacy or safety concerns, serious copyright or intellectual-property violations, confidential financial or proprietary economic information, or other circumstances in which continued public availability would create substantial harm. A withdrawal notice and relevant bibliographic metadata will normally remain available.

An Expression of Concern may be issued when serious questions have been raised about a published article but sufficient evidence for a correction or retraction is not yet available. This may occur while an investigation involving data reliability, authorship, ethical compliance, economic datasets, financial records, statistical outputs, policy evidence, or other research-integrity matters is ongoing, inconclusive, or delayed. The notice may later be updated or replaced following the outcome of the investigation.

Corrections are published when an error affects the accuracy, interpretation, attribution, or discoverability of an article but does not invalidate its principal findings.

• Minor factual, numerical, statistical, or data-presentation errors;
• Incorrect author, affiliation, title, citation, DOI, or other metadata;
• Errors in tables, figures, economic indicators, financial values, coefficients, charts, or statistical outputs;
• Missing acknowledgments or funding information;
• Missing or incomplete ethical, data-availability, or conflict-of-interest declarations; or
• Errors in descriptions of datasets, samples, periods, economic variables, financial measures, models, or analytical procedures that do not invalidate the main conclusions.

Articles already assigned to an issue normally receive a separate correction notice linked to the original publication. Minor typographical changes that do not alter meaning generally do not require a formal correction.

Record Integrity: Amendment notices are designed to preserve transparency in the scholarly record. The journal will avoid silently removing or materially altering published content when a formal correction, retraction, withdrawal, or Expression of Concern is more appropriate.