---
name: rof-literature-positioning
description: Use when positioning a Review of Finance (RoF) manuscript against the finance frontier — citing the right top-three work, honoring RoF's strict author-responsibility citation norm, and staking the contribution without a standalone survey.
---

# Literature Positioning (rof-literature-positioning)

## When to trigger

- The related-work section reads as a survey, not a staking of position
- You are unsure you have found the closest prior finance papers
- A referee could say "this is already in [paper X]"
- Citations skew to one's own subfield and miss the general-finance frame

## The RoF citation norm (strict)

RoF enforces a **strong author-responsibility citation norm**: authors **must search for and cite relevant work**, and **not being aware** of a paper that should reasonably have been found is **not a valid defense** — omissions **can be sanctioned**. Combined with the **top-three-finance-journal standard**, positioning must be (a) complete with respect to the closest work and (b) framed for a **general finance** audience. Because RoF spans **empirical and theoretical** finance, place the paper relative to both the evidence and the mechanism it speaks to.

## Positioning moves

1. **Map the frontier** — identify the 3–6 closest papers (often top-three finance) and state, for each, what they do and where they stop.
2. **Stake the delta** — one clause per close paper: "X shows A; we show B." No vague "we complement."
3. **Bridge empirical and theory** — if empirical, cite the theory you test or discipline; if theory, cite the empirical regularity you rationalize.
4. **Exhaustive search** — run keyword, citation-chain, and recent-working-paper searches; assume a referee owns the paper you missed.
5. **No standalone survey** — weave positioning into the introduction and a short related-work paragraph; the 60-page cap (incl. bibliography) penalizes bloat.

## Search protocol sized to the sanction norm

Because an omission at RoF can be sanctioned, the search must be documented, not vibes:

1. Keyword pass over the top-three finance journals plus RoF itself, going back roughly a decade.
2. Citation chain: forward and backward from the three closest papers (cited-by trails both ways).
3. Working-paper sweep: SSRN FEN, NBER, CEPR Discussion Papers, and the last three EFA annual-meeting programs — RoF's own community circulates the closest competitors there before they hit journals.
4. European-antecedent check: if the paper runs on Datastream, Bankscope/Orbis, or ECB data, search for the country-specific predecessors a European Associate Editor will know by heart.
5. Keep a query log with dates; if a referee later names a missed paper, the log demonstrates good-faith search rather than negligence.

## Micro-example — from survey paragraph to staked position

Before: "A large literature studies bank competition and stability [eight citations]."
After: "Keeley (1990) ties charter value to risk-taking; Boyd and De Nicolò (2005) reverse the sign theoretically; using Bankscope data on 1,800 European banks we show both forces operate, with competition-fragility dominating only above a market-share threshold — the margin neither paper can identify." One clause per pole of the debate, then the delta. (Illustrative numbers; the cited debate is real and well known.)

## Bibliography economics under the page ceiling

- Every reference must be load-bearing: it either anchors a delta, supplies a method, or documents a fact you use. Courtesy citations cost cap pages at RoF without buying goodwill.
- Cite the published version once a working paper appears in print, in Chicago style throughout.
- For a general-interest venue spanning empirical and theoretical finance, include at least one anchor from each side when the paper bridges them — a theory-only or evidence-only reference list signals field-journal framing.
- When two literatures could claim the paper, position in the one where the contribution is largest and acknowledge the other in a single sentence.

## Anti-patterns

- A two-page literature review that never says what *this* paper adds.
- Citing only your own subfield and missing the general-finance reference everyone knows.
- Omitting a close paper and hoping the referee misses it — RoF treats this as your fault and may sanction it.
- Padding the bibliography (it counts against the 60-page cap) instead of citing precisely.

## Output format

```
【Closest papers】[3-6], venue + where each stops
【Delta per paper】X→A, we→B
【Empirical↔theory bridge】mechanism/evidence link
【Search done】keywords / citation-chain / WP scan [Y/N]
【Omission risk】close paper not yet cited? [Y/N]
【Next step】rof-identification-strategy
```