jeg-literature-positioning

Literature Positioning (jeg-literature-positioning)

When to trigger

• The introduction lists papers but does not say where yours sits or what it adds
• A referee might ask "how is this different from the standard endogenous-growth / unified-growth account?"
• You are unsure which strands of the growth literature you must engage

Why JEG positioning is distinctive

JEG runs both theory and empirics in growth, so a paper must be located on two axes at once: (1) the substantive growth strand (neoclassical, endogenous, unified, institutions, human capital, fertility, trade, finance, migration), and (2) the methodological mode (formal theory, cross-country/panel empirics, calibrated quantitative model). Reviewers are growth specialists; vague gestures at "the growth literature" will not satisfy them.

Build the spine

1. Name the strand and its canonical mechanism. State the workhorse account you are speaking to (e.g., the human-capital channel for cross-country income gaps, the demographic-transition mechanism in unified growth theory, the role of R&D in endogenous growth) without misattributing specific papers — verify any citation against the actual source (待核实 if unsure).
2. State the tension or gap. Empirical: an unresolved identification or measurement problem; a contradicted prediction. Theory: an assumption that is too strong, a result that does not generalize, two mechanisms not yet reconciled.
3. Place your marginal step. One sentence: "Relative to [strand], we [new mechanism / new identification / more general result / new long-run data]."
4. Bridge theory and empirics where JEG expects it. Many JEG papers pair a model with a calibration or a reduced-form test; if yours is one-sided, say why that is sufficient and what it leaves open.

Engage the right neighbors

• Cite the growth-theory lineage and the empirical-growth lineage your claim touches, even if your paper is one-sided — JEG referees come from both camps.
• Distinguish your contribution from neighboring field journals' versions (development, macro): why is this a growth-mechanism contribution belonging in JEG?

Anti-patterns

• A literature review that is a chronological list with no organizing tension.
• Citing only your own methodological camp (theory-only or empirics-only) when the strand spans both.
• Attributing a famous result to JEG (or any journal) without checking the actual outlet — verify, mark 待核实 otherwise.
• Overclaiming a "first" without bounding the claim to the specific strand and data.

Strand triage before drafting

Your claim touches	Lineage to engage	What your delta must show
Deep determinants / persistence	institutions-geography-culture debate; historical natural experiments	a new shock, a new mechanism layer, or a channel overturned
Unified growth / demography	demographic transition; fertility-education trade-off	a dynamic mechanism the canon cannot generate
Endogenous growth / ideas	R&D-based growth; scale effects; technology diffusion	a generalization or a test that discriminates between models
Structural transformation	sectoral reallocation; agriculture-to-industry dynamics	new long-run evidence or a quantified reallocation mechanism

If the paper touches two rows, pick the row where your delta is largest and treat the other as a secondary audience — split positioning reads as unfocused to growth specialists.

Worked vignette — placing a structural-transformation paper

Draft claim (illustrative): railway access accelerated the farm-to-factory shift in one country, 1880-1940. Positioning steps: (1) name the strand — structural transformation and market integration, not transport economics; (2) state the tension — existing accounts attribute reallocation to agricultural productivity growth, while your shock isolates falling trade costs; (3) place the marginal step — "Relative to productivity-push accounts, we show a trade-cost channel that explains an illustrative 30% of the observed sectoral shift"; (4) build the bridge — a two-sector model rationalizes why the channel bites hardest in land-scarce regions, handing the calibration a testable cross-region prediction. Without step 4 the manuscript reads as economic history; with it, the growth-mechanism fit is legible to both referee camps.

Output format

【Strand】+ canonical mechanism it relies on
【Tension/gap】one sentence
【Marginal step】"Relative to X, we ..."
【Theory↔empirics bridge】present / one-sided-and-justified
【Neighbors to distinguish】[...]
【Next skill】jeg-contribution-framing