How to format your references using the Economic Theory citation style

This is a short guide how to format citations and the bibliography in a manuscript for Economic Theory. For a complete guide how to prepare your manuscript refer to the journal's instructions to authors.

Using reference management software

Typically you don't format your citations and bibliography by hand. The easiest way is to use a reference manager:

Paperpile	The citation style is built in and you can choose it in Settings > Citation Style or Paperpile > Citation Style in Google Docs.
EndNote	Find the style here: output styles overview
Mendeley, Zotero, Papers, and others	The style is either built in or you can download a CSL file that is supported by most references management programs.
BibTeX	BibTeX syles are usually part of a LaTeX template. Check the instructions to authors if the publisher offers a LaTeX template for this journal.

Journal articles

Those examples are references to articles in scholarly journals and how they are supposed to appear in your bibliography.

Not all journals organize their published articles in volumes and issues, so these fields are optional. Some electronic journals do not provide a page range, but instead list an article identifier. In a case like this it's safe to use the article identifier instead of the page range.

A journal article with 1 author

Eisenstein, M.: Molecular biology: Remove, reuse, recycle. Nature. 514, S2-4 (2014)

A journal article with 2 authors

Reisz, R.R., Smith, M.M.: Developmental biology. Lungfish dental pattern conserved for 360 Myr. Nature. 411, 548 (2001)

A journal article with 3 authors

Rudolph, M.L., Lekić, V., Lithgow-Bertelloni, C.: Viscosity jump in Earth’s mid-mantle. Science. 350, 1349–1352 (2015)

A journal article with 4 or more authors

Head, J.J., Bloch, J.I., Hastings, A.K., Bourque, J.R., Cadena, E.A., Herrera, F.A., Polly, P.D., Jaramillo, C.A.: Giant boid snake from the Palaeocene neotropics reveals hotter past equatorial temperatures. Nature. 457, 715–717 (2009)

Books and book chapters

Here are examples of references for authored and edited books as well as book chapters.

An authored book

Fickelscherer, R.J., Chester, D.L.: Optimal Automated Process Fault Analysis. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ (2012)

An edited book

Shi, Y.Q., Jeon, B. eds: Digital Watermarking: 5th International Workshop, IWDW 2006, Jeju Island, Korea, November 8-10, 2006. Proceedings. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg (2006)

A chapter in an edited book

Staniškis, J.K., Kruopiene, J., Dvarioniene, J.: REACH Regulation – A Prerequisite for Health and Environmental Safety: Lithuanian Case. In: Vitale, K. (ed.) Environmental and Food Safety and Security for South-East Europe and Ukraine. pp. 45–58. Springer Netherlands, Dordrecht (2012)

Web sites

Sometimes references to web sites should appear directly in the text rather than in the bibliography. Refer to the Instructions to authors for Economic Theory.

Blog post

Andrew, D.: What On Earth Is This Bizarre Creature?, https://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/what-earth-curious-creature/

Reports

This example shows the general structure used for government reports, technical reports, and scientific reports. If you can't locate the report number then it might be better to cite the report as a book. For reports it is usually not individual people that are credited as authors, but a governmental department or agency like "U. S. Food and Drug Administration" or "National Cancer Institute".

Government report

Government Accountability Office: No Child Left Behind Act: Assistance from Education Could Help States Better Measure Progress of Students with Limited English Proficiency. U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (2006)

Theses and dissertations

Theses including Ph.D. dissertations, Master's theses or Bachelor theses follow the basic format outlined below.

Doctoral dissertation

Rogers, R.: What Qualities Make an Effective Teacher Labor Union Leader?, (2017)

News paper articles

Unlike scholarly journals, news papers do not usually have a volume and issue number. Instead, the full date and page number is required for a correct reference.

New York Times article

Kanter, J.: Europe’s Leaders Aim to Slow Migration on Dangerous Sea Route From Africa, (2017)

In-text citations

References should be cited in the text by name and year in parentheses:

This sentence cites one reference (Eisenstein 2014).
This sentence cites two references (Eisenstein 2014; Reisz and Smith 2001).

Here are examples of in-text citations with multiple authors:

Two authors: (Reisz and Smith 2001)
Three or more authors: (Head et al. 2009)

About the journal

Full journal title	Economic Theory
Abbreviation	Econ. Theory
ISSN (print)	0938-2259
ISSN (online)	1432-0479
Scope	Economics and Econometrics