---
name: jfe-literature-positioning
description: Use when the related-work section of a Journal of Financial Economics (JFE) manuscript reads like a list and the marginal contribution relative to the top-3 finance frontier is not sharp. Builds the positioning argument; it does not assess identification or design.
---

# Literature Positioning (jfe-literature-positioning)

## When to trigger

- The literature section is a chronological list of "X did A; Y did B"
- A referee could plausibly say "this is already in JF/RFS/JFE paper Z"
- You cannot state in two sentences how you differ from the closest paper
- You are unsure which strands (corporate finance, asset pricing, theory) you must engage

## How JFE referees read positioning

JFE referees are domain experts who know the frontier. They are unforgiving about two things: (1) failing to cite and engage the closest prior work, especially recent top-3 finance papers, and (2) overclaiming novelty against work you simply did not read. Positioning is an argument, not a bibliography.

Know the JFE canon you are extending or revising, and attribute it correctly: **Jensen & Meckling (1976)** and **Fama & French (1993, 2015)** are JFE; **Banz (1981)** size effect is JFE; but **Carhart (1997)** momentum-persistence is *Journal of Finance*, not JFE. Miscrediting a foundational paper signals you do not know the literature. JFE's editorial structure is small and field-specialized — Editor-in-Chief Toni M. Whited (Michigan) with co-editors spanning corporate finance and asset pricing (Kellogg, Wharton, NYU Stern) — so your handling editor will likely be a frontier expert in exactly your subfield. Verify self-citation/anonymity rules on jfinec.com.

## Build the positioning argument

### 1. Map the conversation, not the timeline
Group prior work into the 2–4 debates your paper enters (e.g., "the channel debate," "the measurement debate," "the identification debate"). Each strand gets a short synthesis, not a paper-by-paper recap.

### 2. Locate the closest papers precisely
For the 3–5 nearest papers, state in one line each: what they establish and where they stop. Your contribution lives in the gap between "where they stop" and "what you show."

### 3. Make the differentiation concrete
For each closest paper, name the concrete difference: new identifying variation, new data, a mechanism they could not test, a correction to a believed result, or external validity they lacked. Avoid vague "we extend" / "we complement."

### 4. Engage the theory you test or motivate
Even an empirical JFE paper should connect to the financial-economics theory it tests or is motivated by. State which prediction you are taking to the data and whose theory generates it.

### 5. Pre-empt the "already known" objection
Write the sentence a skeptical referee would write ("Isn't this just paper Z in a new sample?") and answer it directly in the text.

## Checklist

- [ ] Related work is organized by debate/strand, not by date
- [ ] The closest 3–5 papers are named with "what they show / where they stop"
- [ ] Each differentiation is concrete (variation / data / mechanism / correction)
- [ ] The theory being tested or motivated is cited explicitly
- [ ] Recent top-3 finance work on the topic is engaged, not just older classics
- [ ] The "isn't this already known?" objection is answered in the text
- [ ] Self-citations comply with the journal's anonymity rules

## Anti-patterns

- A literature "dump" that cites broadly but engages nothing closely
- Citing only older canonical papers while ignoring recent JF/JFE/RFS work on the exact question
- "To the best of our knowledge, we are the first" with no defense
- Overclaiming relative to a paper you misread or did not read
- Burying the contribution sentence three paragraphs into the related work

## Output format

```
【Strands】[debate 1, debate 2, ...]
【Closest papers】for each: what-they-show / where-they-stop / your-difference
【Theory engaged】whose prediction you test or are motivated by
【Pre-empted objection】"isn't this already known?" -> answer
【Gaps remaining】[...]
【Next】jfe-identification
```