---
name: jme-literature-positioning
description: Use when positioning a Journal of Monetary Economics (JME) manuscript against the monetary-economics and macroeconomics frontier — staking the contribution against monetary-policy, business-cycle, DSGE, intermediation, and expectations literatures without writing a standalone survey.
---

# Literature Positioning (jme-literature-positioning)

## When to trigger

- The contribution relative to prior monetary/macro work is fuzzy or oversold
- Reviewers might say "this is already known" or "this is a known DSGE result"
- The related-work section reads as a survey instead of a stake in the ground
- You are unsure which strands (policy transmission, frictions, expectations) you build on and beat

## How JME referees read the literature

JME draws on overlapping macro literatures: **monetary-policy transmission** (the interest-rate, credit, and risk-taking channels), **New Keynesian / DSGE** modeling, **financial intermediation and frictions** (Bernanke–Gertler–Gilchrist-style accelerators, Gertler–Kiyotaki banking), **business cycles and growth**, **fiscal–monetary interactions**, and **expectations / information** (rational, sticky, and behavioral). With **single anonymized review** (referees know who you are) and a **minimum of two reviewers**, you should assume your referees are specialists in exactly the strand you extend — so cite the immediate frontier precisely and do not paper over the closest competitor.

Because JME enforces a **40-page** limit on accepted papers, the literature discussion must be lean: place the contribution in two or three sentences, not a multi-page tour. Journal titles in the reference list are **spelled out in full** (not abbreviated), references are **author-date**, and the reference list sits **after appendices but before tables and figures** — so positioning lives in the prose, not in a long bibliography.

## Positioning moves

- **Name the closest paper(s)** and state in one sentence what you add (a new shock, a new mechanism, a new moment matched, a new policy counterfactual).
- **Distinguish empirical vs. theoretical contribution** explicitly — JME values both, but a reviewer wants to know which lever you are pulling.
- **Pre-empt "already known"**: if a result resembles a known DSGE prediction, say precisely what is novel (new data, relaxed assumption, quantitative magnitude, identification).
- **Tie to policy** where relevant — a positioning that connects to a live central-banking or fiscal question reads as first-order.

## Checklist

- [ ] The 2-3 closest papers named, with the marginal contribution stated in one sentence each
- [ ] Empirical and theoretical contributions separated
- [ ] The "already known" objection pre-empted
- [ ] References are author-date, journal titles spelled out in full
- [ ] No standalone survey; positioning is lean enough for the 40-page cap


## Positioning pass for Journal of Monetary Economics

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the main macro object, the identifying variation, and the policy-relevant counterfactual; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: macro and monetary economists who expect the shock, mechanism, and policy margin to be visible early.

- **Do the pass:** Build a three-column map: incumbent conversation, unresolved tension, and this manuscript's delta; include one sibling-venue omission that would make a referee doubt the fit.
- **Return a ledger:** give `claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location` rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
- **Sibling guard:** compare against JIE for open-economy trade/finance emphasis, RED for dynamic macro theory, AEJ Macro for broader field positioning; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
- **Stop condition:** do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's `resources/official-source-map.md` has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

## Output format

```
【Strand(s)】policy transmission / DSGE / intermediation / expectations / ...
【Closest prior work】[paper → what we add]
【Empirical contribution】one line
【Theoretical contribution】one line
【"Already known?" rebuttal】one line
【Next step】jme-contribution-framing
```