From jfe-skills
Builds a sharp positioning argument for JFE manuscripts whose related-work section reads as a list and lacks clear marginal contribution relative to the top-3 finance frontier.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/jfe-skills:jfe-literature-positioningThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
- The literature section is a chronological list of "X did A; Y did B"
JFE referees are domain experts who know the frontier. They are unforgiving about two things: (1) failing to cite and engage the closest prior work, especially recent top-3 finance papers, and (2) overclaiming novelty against work you simply did not read. Positioning is an argument, not a bibliography.
Know the JFE canon you are extending or revising, and attribute it correctly: Jensen & Meckling (1976) and Fama & French (1993, 2015) are JFE; Banz (1981) size effect is JFE; but Carhart (1997) momentum-persistence is Journal of Finance, not JFE. Miscrediting a foundational paper signals you do not know the literature. JFE's editorial structure is small and field-specialized — Editor-in-Chief Toni M. Whited (Michigan) with co-editors spanning corporate finance and asset pricing (Kellogg, Wharton, NYU Stern) — so your handling editor will likely be a frontier expert in exactly your subfield. Verify self-citation/anonymity rules on jfinec.com.
Group prior work into the 2–4 debates your paper enters (e.g., "the channel debate," "the measurement debate," "the identification debate"). Each strand gets a short synthesis, not a paper-by-paper recap.
For the 3–5 nearest papers, state in one line each: what they establish and where they stop. Your contribution lives in the gap between "where they stop" and "what you show."
For each closest paper, name the concrete difference: new identifying variation, new data, a mechanism they could not test, a correction to a believed result, or external validity they lacked. Avoid vague "we extend" / "we complement."
Even an empirical JFE paper should connect to the financial-economics theory it tests or is motivated by. State which prediction you are taking to the data and whose theory generates it.
Write the sentence a skeptical referee would write ("Isn't this just paper Z in a new sample?") and answer it directly in the text.
【Strands】[debate 1, debate 2, ...]
【Closest papers】for each: what-they-show / where-they-stop / your-difference
【Theory engaged】whose prediction you test or are motivated by
【Pre-empted objection】"isn't this already known?" -> answer
【Gaps remaining】[...]
【Next】jfe-identification
npx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin jfe-skillsPositions a Journal of Finance manuscript by writing a crisp contribution paragraph that names the closest papers and states the specific delta. Use when the related-work section is a chronological list or the intro fails to state what is new.
Helps frame related-work sections for RFS manuscripts by defining the precise contribution delta against top finance journals. Guides structuring anchor literatures, frontier, wedge, and delta.
Positions a JFQA manuscript against the finance literature to clarify its contribution. Use when drafting the related-work section for corporate finance, asset pricing, microstructure, or institutions papers.