JFI Workflow Router (jfi-workflow)

When to trigger

• "I'm writing a JFI paper — where do I start?"
• You finished one stage and want the next jfi-* skill
• You are unsure whether your project is theory-led or empirics-led at JFI

What JFI is (orient first)

Journal of Financial Intermediation (JFI) is an Elsevier journal (ISSN 1042-9573) on banking, financial intermediation, and the economics of financial institutions and markets. It publishes both theory and empirics: bank behavior, intermediary frictions, corporate finance, regulation, and related financial-economics topics. So the router first asks whether the paper's core contribution is a model (theory) or an empirical design — this changes how jfi-identification-strategy, jfi-data-analysis, and jfi-replication-and-data-policy are applied.

Routing map

Default sequence

topic-selection → literature-positioning → identification-strategy → data-analysis → contribution-framing → tables-figures → writing-style → replication-and-data-policy → review-process → submission → rebuttal.

Two lifecycle profiles through this router

• Empirics-led (e.g., a register-based lending-channel paper): topic-selection settles the mechanism; jfi-identification-strategy is the heaviest stop (demand confounds, within-firm design); jfi-data-analysis builds the battery; jfi-review-process matters early, because the desk screen is the binding constraint, not the referee round.
• Theory-led (e.g., a model of run-prone shadow funding): jfi-identification-strategy becomes assumptions-and-propositions discipline; jfi-data-analysis shrinks to a numerical illustration; jfi-writing-style carries more weight, since proof exposition is the surface the referee actually reads.

Symptom → skill routing

Stage gates before money and goodwill are spent

1. Gate A (after literature-positioning): the delta is a mechanism, not merely a new dataset.
2. Gate B (after identification/data-analysis): a within-firm or equivalent demand control exists, or the theory's propositions are fully proved with stated boundaries.
3. Gate C (before submission): the desk-screen self-audit passes — mechanism in the abstract, design defended in the introduction, the <=250-word abstract and 1-7 English keywords are ready, and the US$500 new-submission fee is justified. Re-confirm fees against the journal's current author guidelines before filing.

A routing pass, worked (illustrative)

An author arrives with loan-level evidence that small banks cut credit after a deposit outflow. jfi-topic-selection: strong fit once anchored to liquidity transformation. jfi-literature-positioning: closest papers are the deposits-channel line; the delta is the relationship-borrower margin. jfi-identification-strategy: outflow exposure may proxy local demand — gate B forces a within-firm design before any drafting continues. jfi-data-analysis: battery planned around that threat. Only then do framing, exhibits, and style run, and jfi-submission clears the fee gates. The router's value is refusing to let writing start before gate B — at JFI the design objection, not the prose, kills papers. On an R&R, re-enter the map at the skill matching the referee's heaviest comment, then exit via jfi-rebuttal.

Anti-patterns

• Treating JFI as purely empirical when your contribution is a model (or vice versa)
• Skipping jfi-review-process and being surprised by desk-rejection or a narrow appeal path
• Forgetting the US$500 fee until jfi-submission — see the source map and re-confirm before filing

Output format

【Stage】<your current stage>
【Paper type】theory / empirical / both
【Next skill】jfi-<role>
【Then】<the one after>