Literature Positioning & Introduction (jpe-literature-positioning)

When to trigger

• The related-work section reads as an annotated list ("X did A. Y did B.")
• The introduction never states crisply what economics learns from this paper
• Reviewers (or you) cannot tell which literature the paper is contributing to
• You are unsure whether you have engaged the canonical theory the result speaks to

What JPE wants from positioning

JPE introductions are economic arguments, not literature catalogs. The reader should finish the first three pages knowing: the economic question, the mechanism, what was already known, the precise gap, and what you do about it. Positioning is judged on whether you have placed the paper against the right literature and engaged the theory the result bears on — not merely the most recent applied papers.

Because JPE is price-theory rooted, a credible intro usually connects to a body of theory (the model or mechanism the evidence tests), not only to prior empirical estimates. Often the foundational paper lives in JPE itself — Stigler's "The Economics of Information" (JPE 1961), Becker's "Crime and Punishment" (JPE 1968), or Black and Scholes (JPE 1973). Citing five recent DID papers but ignoring the classic theory your result confirms or overturns — especially the obvious JPE antecedent — is a positioning failure a Chicago referee will name.

The JPE introduction arc (five moves)

1. Hook / question — the economic question and why it matters, in plain terms a generalist grasps.
2. What we know — the established economic understanding and the theory that frames it (author-date, the canonical references plus the live frontier).
3. The gap / tension — the specific thing prior work got wrong, conflated, or left untested. Be precise: a conflated channel, an untested prediction, a missing equilibrium force.
4. This paper — what you do (model and/or identification), in two or three sentences, mechanism first.
5. Findings + contribution — the result, its economic interpretation, and the portable lesson. Preview the mechanism evidence, not just the headline number.

A short "related literature" paragraph can follow, but the contribution must already be clear from moves 1–5.

Positioning checklist

• The paper names the one or two literatures it contributes to, not five it merely touches
• The canonical theory the result speaks to is cited and engaged (not just recent empirics)
• The gap is stated as an economic shortcoming, not "no one has used this data"
• Chicago author-date citations throughout, e.g. "Becker (1968)" (JPE house style — not numbered references)
• Every claim about prior work is fair and would survive that author refereeing the paper
• The contribution is differentiated from the closest 2–3 papers explicitly
• The mechanism appears in the intro, not buried in section 5

Anti-patterns

• A "related work" list with no synthesis and no stated tension
• Citing only the recent applied frontier while ignoring the foundational theory (a Chicago referee will name the omitted classic)
• Overclaiming "first to show" when a theory paper predicted it decades ago — credit the prediction, claim the test
• Strawmanning the closest competitor to manufacture a gap
• Numbered/bracket citations (wrong house style — JPE uses University of Chicago Press author-date)
• An intro that explains what you did before establishing why economics needed it

Output format

【Target literatures】1... 2...
【Canonical theory engaged】refs (Chicago author-date; JPE antecedent if any)
【Gap / tension】the precise economic shortcoming in prior work
【Closest 3 papers】and how this differs from each
【Intro arc check】moves 1–5 present? [y/n each]
【Citation style】Chicago author-date verified
【Next】jpe-identification (or jpe-theory-model if model leads)