JFI is an Elsevier journal on banking, financial intermediation, and the economics of financial institutions and markets, publishing both theory and empirics. The decisive question is: is an intermediary or financial-institution mechanism first-order? Strong fits put banks, lenders, dealers, insurers, or other intermediaries — and the frictions they resolve or create (information asymmetry, monitoring, liquidity transformation, capital and regulation, relationship lending) — at the center.
A paper is off-fit if intermediation is incidental: a pure asset-pricing result, a corporate-finance study where banks are just a control, or a macro paper with no institutional channel. Redirect those to a general finance or field journal unless you can make the intermediation mechanism the load-bearing contribution.
This choice shapes how almost every later skill is applied, so make it now.
| Project | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Relationship lending and information capture in a credit register | Strong | Core intermediation mechanism |
| Bank capital shock transmission to credit and firms | Strong | Regulation working through the intermediary balance sheet |
| Deposit competition and franchise value | Strong | Liability-side intermediation economics |
| Fintech lenders displacing bank credit | Strong if the displacement runs through screening/monitoring | The intermediation contrast must do the work |
| Bank stock-return anomalies | Redirect | Asset pricing wearing bank clothing |
| Firm capital structure with bank debt as one covariate | Redirect | Banks incidental to the question |
| Macro credit cycles with no institutional channel | Redirect | No intermediary mechanism to test |
A quick differentiator from the Journal of Banking and Finance, JFI's closest neighbor: JBF accommodates broad empirical banking — institutional documentation, cross-country performance, risk-management practice. JFI expects the paper to test, discipline, or extend an intermediation mechanism. Ask: "which theory of intermediation does my result speak to?" If the honest answer is "none, but the facts are useful," the project is likely a better JBF match; if a named friction does the work, you are on JFI ground.
A draft shows banks with older depositor bases raise deposit rates 15bp less after policy hikes. As pure documentation: borderline at best. Re-anchored to the deposit-franchise mechanism — market power over inattentive depositors funds stable long-duration lending, with the asset-side prediction then tested — the same data become a strong JFI fit. At this venue, topic selection is mechanism selection.
Rescue moves for a borderline verdict, in order of preference: (1) find the intermediation prediction your setting can uniquely test and promote it to the headline; (2) add the heterogeneity cut (bank capital, relationship intensity, depositor stickiness) that separates the intermediary channel from alternatives; (3) if neither exists, redirect early — before the non-refundable submission fee, not after. Run this check again whenever the headline result changes during analysis; fit verdicts drift.
【Intermediation mechanism】<the first-order bank/intermediary channel>
【Fit verdict】strong / borderline / redirect-elsewhere
【Paper type】theory-led / empirics-led / both
【Next skill】jfi-literature-positioning