Topic Selection for a JEL Survey (jel-topic-selection)

When to trigger

• You have a candidate field and need to know if it is "JEL-shaped"
• A topic feels either too narrow (a single-question review) or too sprawling (a whole subfield)
• You are deciding between JEL and a sibling outlet (JEP, Annual Review of Economics, a field journal's review section)
• The literature is young/fast-moving and you suspect it is not yet mature enough to survey

The four JEL-fit tests

A literature belongs in JEL when it passes all four. If it fails one, route accordingly.

1. Maturity. There is a body of research — multiple research lines, accumulated evidence, recognizable debates — not a handful of recent working papers. A field that is still being born produces a premature survey that will date in a year. (Fails → too young; wait, or pitch JEP instead.)
2. Importance. The questions matter to economists broadly, not only to a dozen specialists. A JEL reader is a non-specialist economist who should finish the survey understanding why the field exists and what it has settled. (Fails → too niche; a field journal's review section fits better.)
3. Need for synthesis. The literature is scattered, contradictory, or hard to enter — a competent newcomer cannot currently get oriented without a guide. The survey's value is the map, not the list. (Fails → already well-synthesized; nothing to add.)
4. Tractable scope. One author/team can plausibly read and weigh the whole relevant literature in a single article. JEL surveys are long but not infinite. (Fails → carve a coherent sub-field, or split into two surveys.)

Decision table

Framing the animating question

A JEL survey is organized by a question about the field, not by a topic label. Before proposing, write one sentence of each:

• The state-of-knowledge question: "What do we now know about X, and how confident should we be?"
• The why-now: what makes a synthesis valuable at this moment (a wave of new evidence, a methodological shift, a policy debate, convergence or fracture of findings).
• The reader's payoff: what a non-specialist economist can do after reading (enter the field, teach it, locate the open questions).

Checklist

• The field passes all four fit tests (maturity, importance, need, tractable scope)
• The animating question about the field is written in one sentence
• The "why now" is concrete (new evidence / method shift / policy salience), not "no one has surveyed this"
• The intended reader is the non-specialist economist, and the payoff is stated
• You can name the 3–6 research lines the survey must cover (a coverage skeleton)
• Checked it is not a JEP piece (too short/non-technical) or a field-review piece (too narrow)
• You are not the only contributor to this literature — the survey will not be a self-retrospective

Anti-patterns

• "No one has written a survey of X" used as the sole justification — absence is not importance
• Surveying your own research program under a neutral-sounding title (self-promotion; JEL referees punish this hard)
• Picking a field so new that the survey freezes a moving target
• A scope so broad the article becomes a list; a scope so narrow it is a field-journal review
• Confusing "topic" (a label) with "animating question" (what the survey argues about the field)

Output format

【Field】<the literature>
【Four tests】maturity / importance / need-for-synthesis / tractable-scope — pass or fail each
【Animating question】"What do we know about ___, and how sure are we?"
【Why now】<new evidence / method shift / policy salience>
【Reader payoff】<what a non-specialist can do after reading>
【Coverage skeleton】<3–6 research lines the survey must cover>
【Verdict】JEL-shaped / rescope / wrong-venue (→ which venue)
【Next step】→ jel-proposal-and-commissioning (pitch the ~10-page sketch to the editor)