Call for Papers

TL;DR for Seasoned Authors

• Authors must submit abstracts by February 2 and full papers by February 9.
• Papers submitted to EC’26 must select several content areas. The list of content areas can be found below.
• New this year: papers will be matched to one of thirteen Track Chairs via the same matching algorithm assigning PCs and SPCs, and authors will not select their Track. The list of Track Chairs can be found here.
• New this year: Refine.ink is offering optional AI-generated pre-submission feedback to authors who submit an EC-formatted paper by the abstract registration deadline (February 2), see below.
• Continuing an EC’25 change: papers that have been submitted to a journal can be submitted to EC as long as they have not been accepted and have not received a request for revision. If they have received a revise and resubmit they CANNOT be submitted to EC (but can be nominated for Highlights Beyond EC – see below for further details).
• EC’26 is continuing the forward-to-journal option as in previous years – more details will come later.
• ACM has now fully transitioned to Open Access. See below under ‘ACM Open’ for further details.
• Please be aware of ACM’s policy on generative AI and Large Language Models, summarized below.

EC’26 is currently planned as a primarily in-person event.

Policy for Accepted Papers

At least one author of each accepted paper must register for EC’26 and present the paper in-person. Exceptions may be made only in rare cases such as severe illness, visa denial, or a death in the family. If no author(s) will be able to attend, please write back to us (the General Chair, PC Chairs, and Virtual Chair) and explain the reason(s) for your absence.

Background

Since 1999, the ACM Special Interest Group on Economics and Computation (SIGecom) has sponsored the leading scientific conference on advances in theory, empirics, and applications at the interface of economics and computation. The 27th ACM Conference on Economics and Computation (EC’26) will feature invited speakers, a technical program of submitted paper presentations, workshops, and posters. EC’26 is currently planned as a primarily in-person event, taking place from July 6 through July 10, 2026 at Sapienza University of Rome.
We solicit paper submissions for presentation in the technical program.

Timetable for Authors

• Monday, February 2, 2026 (11:59 pm AoE): Abstract submission deadline.
• Monday, February 2, 2026 (11:59pm AoE): Deadline to optionally submit a PDF that will receive AI-generated pre-submission feedback.
• Monday, February 9, 2026 (11:59 pm AoE): Paper submission deadline.
• Thursday, March 26, 2026: First-round decisions sent to authors.
• Tuesday, April 21, 2026: Second-round reviews sent to authors.
• Saturday, April 25, 2026 (11:59pm AoE): Author responses due.
• Monday May 18, 2026: Final paper decisions sent to authors.
• TBA (11:59pm AoE): Camera-ready versions of accepted papers due.

July 6-10, 2026: Conference technical program.

Submission Instructions

[Submit a paper]

Identifiers. Authors must submit abstracts by February 2 and full papers by February 9. The submission server is now open.

Format. The body of the submission (excluding the title page and the bibliography) may be up to 18 pages long. The title page should only contain the title, submission number, and the abstract and it can also include a table of contents. In addition, an appendix of arbitrary length may be included at the end of the paper only for the review process (i.e., an appendix will not appear if the paper is published). This appendix will be read at the discretion of the reviewers. To add the submission number to the title page, one must first submit a paper without a number, see what number was assigned, and then revise the submission to include this number. The body of the submission should contain a clear presentation of the contributions of the paper, including a discussion of prior work and an outline of the key technical ideas and methods used to achieve the main claims. The submission as a whole should include all of the ideas necessary for an expert to fully verify the central claims in the paper. Submitted papers will be evaluated on significance of the contribution, originality, relation to prior research, technical quality, and exposition.

LaTex style files. Authors will be required to format their submissions using the EC’26 LaTex style files, which uses a single-column format with 10-point font. Papers that do not use the EC’26 LaTex style files or violate the page limit may be rejected without review.

Policy on use of generative AI and Large Language Models. ACM EC follows all ACM policies, including the ACM policy on authorship and the ACM policy on peer review. Authors should also be aware of ACM penalties for violating ACM policies, and in particular the ACM policy on plagiarism, misrepresentation, and falsification. Use of generative AI or LLMs does not excuse authors from the responsibility of respecting these policies. Below is a brief summary of relevant policies that should suffice for most authors and reviewers. Authors or reviewers considering significant use of generative AI and/or LLMs should consult the full written policies.

• Authorship. All authors take full responsibility for all content in the submitted work. Generative AI cannot be listed as authors on ACM submissions.

• Using AI and LLMs in submissions. The use of generative AI (and related tools) to create content is permitted, provided that (a) the submission contains no plagiarized, misrepresented, or falsified content, (b) the resulting work in its totality is an accurate representation of the authors’ underlying work and novel intellectual contributions, rather than primarily the result of the tool’s generative capabilities, (c) the authors accept responsibility for the veracity and correctness of all material in the submission, including any computer-generated material.

• Disclosing AI and LLMs in submissions. Usage of AI and LLMs in submissions must be disclosed, and the disclosure must be commensurate with the usage. For example, basic word processing systems that recommend and insert replacement text, check spelling/grammar, translate individual words/phrases etc. need not be disclosed. On the other extreme, if entire paragraphs/tables/images/graphs/etc. are generated, authors should prepare an appendix or supplemental materials describing the tool used (including its version), the prompts provided as input, and any post-generation edits. See here for further guidelines, and when in doubt err towards disclosure.

• Managing confidential information during the review process. Members of the reviewing team have access to confidential information. In particular: (a) the identities of reviewers is confidential information (in order to protect the integrity of the review process) and (b) all content within the submission itself is confidential (because these are novel ideas of the authors that the review team is obliged to keep confidential until publication). Reviewers may not upload any confidential information to third-party tools, as such tools may store, learn, index, or utilize this information without the authors’ or reviewers’ consent, and ACM prohibits the sharing of any confidential information with third-party tools, including LLMs, that do not promise to maintain the confidentiality of that information. Reviewers are allowed to use AI tools to assist in reviewing (for example to improve their own writing, to ask for summaries of related works, etc.) only if they refrain from including any confidential content, which includes any content in submission itself.
• Consequences for violating ACM policies. Incidental violations may receive an official warning, whereas severe violations may result in a five-year ban from all ACM venues and notification to the employer. In particular, falsifications, plagiarism, and disclosure of confidential information can be very serious infractions even on the first instance, and the use of generative AI or LLMs in committing such infractions does not excuse the authors from responsibility. See here for further details. Suspected violations with credible evidence can be reported here.

Experimental Program: Automated Pre-Submission Feedback. As an experiment for the EC 2026 conference, Refine.ink is offering authors the optional opportunity to receive pre-submission feedback on their papers generated by an advanced LLM-based model. The feedback will be returned in time to improve your submission for EC 2026. To opt in to this program, authors should do the following:

• While registering your EC submission upload your current version by the EC registration deadline (Feb 2, AOE). 
• Opt in by checking the corresponding box.

This program is entirely optional, and authors with any concerns are completely free to submit their paper to EC as normal without receiving pre-submission feedback. Only authors who, by the EC registration deadline (Feb 2, AoE), upload their current version to HotCRP and select the opt-in checkbox will receive this feedback. To learn more about the program visit this page.

Review process. Each paper will be assigned to: (a) a single Track Chair (TC), (b) a single primary member of the Senior Program Committee (SPC), (c) a single secondary SPC, (d) at least two first-round reviewers from the Program Committee (PC), and (e) at least one second-round PC reviewer (for papers that advance to the second round). All assignments will be made algorithmically, taking into account (i) submission metadata such as Area and alternative venues (see below), (ii) TC/SPC/PC metadata such as content area and alternative venues, (iii) load balancing, and possibly (iv) similarity scores computed based on the full text of the submission and the full text of authored texts of the TC/SPC/PC.

The TC oversees the entire reviewing process for assigned papers, and is primarily responsible for ensuring that consistent reviewing standards are applied to all papers. The primary SPC is responsible for shepherding papers through the review process and for making accept/reject recommendations to the Track and Program Chairs. Each PC is responsible for reviewing the submitted paper and discussing with the entire review team.

Each paper will receive at least two first-round reviews and authors will be notified by March 26 whether the paper advances to the second round. Advancing papers will receive at least one additional review in the second round, and final decisions will be announced by May 18.

The review process is double blind. Authors must take measures to ensure that their identity is not easily revealed from the submission itself. Authors should refer to their prior work in a neutral manner (i.e., instead of saying “We showed” say “XYZ et al. showed”).

Author response period. Authors of papers undergoing second-round reviewing are asked to respond to concrete “Questions for Authors” between April 21 and April 25. During this period, authors will also be able to see reviews and correct any “Factual Inaccuracies”.

It is inappropriate to use the author response to challenge the reviewers’ subjective assessments, and also to promise edits to the paper (because your paper is being evaluated exactly as it is submitted).

Topics. Each submission must select at least one topic from the list provided below. Note that the topics are partially overlapping; if in doubt, authors are advised to select those area(s) that best fit their paper. Topics will be used to match papers with TC/SPCs/PCs.

• Agent-based modeling
• Algorithmic fairness and data privacy
• Auctions and pricing
• Behavioral economics and bounded rationality
• Blockchain and cryptocurrencies
• Contract design
• Crowdsourcing and information elicitation
• Decision theory
• Econometrics
• Economic aspects of learning algorithms
• Economic aspects of neural networks and large language models
• Equilibrium analysis, including price of anarchy
• Equilibrium computation and complexity
• Fair division
• Industrial organization
• Information design
• Laboratory and field experiments
• Market design & matching markets
• Market equilibria
• Mechanism design
• Online algorithms
• Online platforms and applications
• Social good and ethics
• Social choice & voting theory
• Social networks and social learning

Alternative venues. In addition, we will ask the authors to specify alternative venues to which they would consider submitting the paper. Alternative venues will be used to match papers with TC/SPCs/PCs. Specifically: TC/SPCs/PCs will be asked to select alternative venues where they regularly submit and review (ex. “CS Theory: STOC/FOCS/SODA/ITCS”), so authors should select alternative venues whose methodology is most appropriate for the submission.

Submission of code and data. In the interest of reproducibility, authors are strongly encouraged to submit their code and data, if any. Such material should be archived as a single zip file and submitted as supplementary material.

One-page extended abstract option. To accommodate the publishing traditions of different fields, authors of accepted papers can ask that only a one-page abstract of the paper appear in the proceedings, along with a URL pointing to the full paper. Authors should guarantee the link to be reliable for at least two years. This option is available to accommodate subsequent publication in journals that would not consider results that have been published in preliminary form in conference proceedings. Such papers must be submitted electronically and formatted just like papers submitted for full-text publication. All submissions undergo the same review process, and authors of accepted papers will indicate their publication preference only after the paper is accepted.

Submission of publicly available work (e.g., papers on arXiv). It is acceptable to submit work that has been presented in public (provided there are no published proceedings) or has been uploaded to arXiv or similar online archives, provided the submission itself is anonymized.

Simultaneous submissions to journals. It is acceptable to simultaneously submit a paper to EC’26 and to a journal, or to submit paper that is already under review at a journal as long as the paper (a) has not been accepted by the journal, and (b) has not received a request for a revision (revise and resubmit, major or minor revision) by the journal. Authors intending to submit the paper to a journal after the EC submission should indicate that they will publish a one-page abstract in EC upon acceptance. Papers that are accepted at EC’26 and appear as a one-page abstract can subsequently be submitted for publication in a journal but may not be submitted to any other archival conference (i.e., with published proceedings).  Any paper that violates (a) or (b) (and is therefore ineligible for submission to EC’26) is eligible for nomination to Highlights Beyond EC. All eligibility criteria are evaluated at the EC’26 paper submission deadline, and it is not necessary to notify the PC Co-Chairs if a paper first receives a request for revision during the EC’26 review process.

No other simultaneous submissions. The following submissions are not allowed: (a) papers that are currently under review at another archival conference, (b) papers that have been accepted for publication in a journal or archival conference before the EC’26 submission deadline, (c) papers in which one or more of the contributions have previously been published or accepted for publication in a journal or archival conference. Authors should note the distinction between “accepted for publication in an archival conference” and “published in an archival conference” – for example, any paper accepted to EC’25 has been accepted for publication in an archival conference, including those that are ultimately published as one-page abstracts.

Highlights beyond EC. Papers that have already been published (or accepted for publication, or received a request for revision) in conferences or journals other than EC can be nominated (including self-nominations) for inclusion in a special plenary session at EC’26 called “Highlights beyond EC”, which is intended to highlight some of the best work in economics and computation that has appeared elsewhere. The corresponding call for nominations will be announced at a later date.

Conflict of interest. Authors will have the opportunity to declare conflicts of interest (COIs) with Program Committee members. This must be done separately for each submission. Declaring COIs prevents the specified people from reviewing a paper, thereby constraining the matching process and so potentially negatively impacting review quality. For this reason, COIs should not be declared automatically based on a prior relationship. Instead, when declaring COIs, authors are asked to follow the ACM Conflict of Interest Policy. Program Committee members can also declare a conflict of interest with authors as well as with specific papers.

AUTHORS TAKE NOTE: The official publication date is the date the proceedings are made available in the ACM Digital Library. This date may be up to two weeks prior to the first day of the conference. The official publication date affects the deadline for any patent filings related to published work.

By submitting your article to an ACM Publication, you are hereby acknowledging that you and your co-authors are subject to all ACM Publications Policies, including ACM’s new Publications Policy on Research Involving Human Participants and Subjects. Alleged violations of this policy or any ACM Publications Policy will be investigated by ACM and may result in a full retraction of your paper, in addition to other potential penalties, as per ACM Publications Policy.

Please ensure that you and your co-authors obtain an ORCID ID, so you can complete the publishing process for your accepted paper. ACM has been involved in ORCID from the start and we have recently made a commitment to collect ORCID IDs from all of our published authors. The collection process has started and will roll out as a requirement throughout 2022. We are committed to improve author discoverability, ensure proper attribution and contribute to ongoing community efforts around name normalization; your ORCID ID will help in these efforts.

Important update on ACM Open: As of January 1, 2026, ACM has fully transitioned to an Open Access publication model. All ACM publications, including those from ACM-sponsored conferences, will be 100% Open Access. Authors will have two options for publishing Open Access articles with ACM: the ACM Open institutional model or by paying Article Processing Charges (APCs).

 Articles published as extended abstracts do not require APCs.  Authors from institutions not participating in ACM Open who opt to publish their work as a full research paper will need to pay an APC to publish their papers, unless they qualify for a financial or discretionary waiver. To find out whether an APC applies to your article, please consult the list of participating institutions in ACM Open and review the ACM APC Waivers and Discounts Policy. Additional APC waivers will be offered by SIGecom based on demand.

Forward to Journal.

[TBD]

Questions?

Contact Alex & Matt, the PC chairs, at ec2026chairs@gmail.com