jeg-writing-style

Writing Style (jeg-writing-style)

When to trigger

• The paper is technically complete but the growth contribution is not legible
• Abstract, introduction, or model section needs JEG-specific tightening
• Springer metadata, APA references, declarations, or keywords need final polish

Style principles

• Lead with the growth question and mechanism.
• State whether the paper is theoretical, empirical, or mixed.
• Translate estimates or model results into growth economics: convergence, long-run income, productivity, fertility, human capital, technology, institutions.
• Keep claims bounded to the sample, model, and identifying assumptions.
• Use author-year citations with an APA 7 style reference list.

Abstract repair pattern

Use this order:

Question -> growth mechanism -> method/data/model -> headline result -> scope/implication.

Avoid abstracts that lead with "we develop a model" or "we use a panel" without naming the growth mechanism. For JEG, method is persuasive only after the growth question is clear.

Mechanism-first introduction

The first two pages should answer:

• What growth fact or dynamic pattern is hard to explain?
• Which mechanism is proposed: human capital, fertility, technology, institutions, finance, migration, inequality, political economy, structural transformation, or another channel?
• Why does the model, data, or calibration isolate that mechanism rather than merely document an association?
• What changes in our understanding of long-run growth or development?

Move institutional background, data details, and calibration minutiae after this chain is visible. JEG readers need the growth mechanism before they need the technical inventory.

Magnitude translation rules

JEG prose converts coefficients into growth language; a raw beta is a draft, not a result:

• Long-run level effects: give log points and the implied ratio ("0.14 log points, roughly a 15% income gap").
• Growth-rate effects: annualize and compound ("0.3 percentage points of annual growth compounds to about 35% higher income over a century" — illustrative arithmetic).
• Convergence results: translate the coefficient into the half-life of the income gap.
• Calibration output: state the share of an observed gap or transition the mechanism accounts for, with the untargeted-moment fit reported alongside.
• Fertility and demographic results: express effects in children per woman and transition-timing years, then connect them to income per capita through the model's quantity-quality margin.

Worked vignette — rewriting a persistence-results paragraph

Before (illustrative): "The coefficient on historical literacy is 0.21 and significant at the 1% level across all specifications."

After: "Districts one standard deviation above the mean in 1880 literacy have roughly 21% higher GDP per capita today (Conley SE, 250 km). Through the lens of the model, about half of this gap reflects intergenerational human-capital transmission; the remainder loads on the institutional channel examined in Section 6. Taken at face value, historical literacy differences account for an illustrative one-fifth of present-day interdistrict income dispersion."

The rewrite names the unit, the spatial inference, the mechanism split, and the aggregate stake — the four things a growth specialist scans a results paragraph for.

Section architecture in accepted articles (hedged)

• Comparative-development empirics commonly run: introduction → historical background → data → empirical strategy → results → mechanisms → often a model rationalizing the findings → conclusion.
• Theory papers commonly run: introduction → model → equilibrium and dynamics → comparative statics or calibration → empirical or historical corroboration → conclusion.
• In both modes a long online appendix is the norm while the main text stays mechanism-first; treat these orderings as priors from recent issues and verify formatting specifics against the journal's current author guidelines.

Submission-sensitive details

• Abstract should be 150-250 words.
• Provide 4-6 keywords and JEL classification codes.
• Include Statements/Declarations where required by Springer.
• LLMs cannot be authors; disclose LLM use if applicable.
• Use editable LaTeX source or Word files.

Output format

[Section] abstract / intro / model / empirics / conclusion
[Growth mechanism] ...
[Main edit] ...
[Metadata/declarations] ...
[Next step] jeg-submission