--- name: journal-of-monetary-economics description: Use when targeting Journal of Monetary Economics (JME) or deciding whether a macro / monetary manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, framing, method-and-evidence bar, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. --- # Journal of Monetary Economics (journal-of-monetary-economics) ## Journal positioning The Journal of Monetary Economics (JME) is a field leader in macroeconomics and monetary economics, carrying the Carnegie-Rochester-NYU conference heritage of quantitative theory disciplined by data. It publishes work on business cycles, monetary and fiscal policy, inflation, growth, and the macro mechanisms that link them — typically a model that speaks to a macro question and is taken seriously to the data. The readership is macroeconomists, so a paper must matter for how the profession thinks about aggregate fluctuations or policy, not just fit a series well. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the publisher's own site or submission system. ## When to trigger - The author names JME (or a top macro field outlet) as the target venue. - A macro paper combines a quantitative model with empirical discipline and the author is choosing among macro field journals. - An empirical-macro or monetary-policy paper needs re-framing so the mechanism, not the regression, is the contribution. - The author needs JME's desk-reject risks and a credible macro alternative list before submitting. ## Scope & topic fit - Business-cycle theory and quantitative macro: DSGE, RBC-descended and New Keynesian models, heterogeneous-agent macro. - Monetary policy, inflation, the transmission mechanism, central-bank behavior, and the interaction of monetary and fiscal policy. - Growth, productivity, and the long-run determinants of macro aggregates when framed for a macro audience. - Empirical macro with credible identification of aggregate shocks or policy effects; macro-finance and macro-labor at the aggregate level. ## Method & evidence bar - Quantitative theory is expected to be disciplined: calibration or estimation tied to data, with the model's mechanism made transparent and its quantitative claims defensible. - Empirical macro must take identification of shocks/policy seriously (e.g., narrative, high-frequency, SVAR, local-projection approaches) and confront alternative explanations. - A model needs a clear mechanism and a reason its quantitative answer differs from existing models — not a marginal extension with one more friction. - Robustness across reasonable parameterizations, specifications, and sample choices is expected. ## Structure & house style - The introduction states the macro question, the mechanism, the modeling/empirical strategy, and the quantitative headline, and says why it changes the macro conversation. - Make the marginal contribution explicit against the closest quantitative-macro papers; separate the theoretical mechanism from the quantitative result. - JME uses an unstructured abstract and JEL codes; an online appendix carries derivations, additional calibrations, and robustness. - Exhibits emphasize quantitative magnitudes, impulse responses, and decompositions; the central mechanism should be legible from a key figure or table. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked. - Search the live site for "Journal of Monetary Economics guide for authors / submission guidelines" and follow the current Elsevier version, not a third-party broker's copy. - Re-check formatting, abstract/JEL codes, reference style, the online-appendix policy, and the data & code / replication availability requirements. - Re-check the current code-and-replication-package expectation and any conference-linked or invited-issue submission routes on the editorial system. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] One sentence stating why a macroeconomist should change their view of cycles or policy because of this paper. - [ ] The contribution is stated as mechanism / quantitative result / identification, not as model fit or significance. - [ ] The introduction positions the paper against the current quantitative-macro frontier on this question. - [ ] The model is disciplined to data (calibration/estimation) and empirical identification of shocks/policy is defensible. - [ ] The replication package (code, data, calibration targets) is ready and reproducible. ## Common desk-reject triggers - A model with one extra friction and no new quantitative or mechanistic insight. - Empirical macro with a regression but no credible identification of the aggregate shock or policy change. - A calibration that hits targets without a transparent or convincing mechanism. - A micro or applied paper with no aggregate/macro payoff framed as macroeconomics. ## Re-routing decision - General-interest macro at top-5 ambition → `american-economic-review` or `aej-macroeconomics`; quantitative dynamics → `review-of-economic-dynamics`. - Long-run growth and development questions → `journal-of-economic-growth`. - Money, banking, and policy-facing applied macro-finance → `journal-of-money-credit-and-banking`; macro-finance asset pricing → `journal-of-finance`. - Open-economy / international macro → `journal-of-international-economics`; pure macro theory mechanism → `journal-of-economic-theory`. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Journal of Monetary Economics [Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics> [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check] [Re-route suggestion] ```