Jeem Topic Selection

Topic Selection (jeem-topic-selection)

When to trigger

• The paper is aimed at JEEM and you are not sure the environmental or resource mechanism is doing the work versus being a label on a generic applied-micro result
• A coauthor asks "is this JEEM, JAERE, JPubE, AEJ: Policy, or Ecological Economics?"
• The result is interesting but the policy or welfare stakes are not articulated
• The paper is a method/valuation exercise and you must show it speaks to a substantive environmental question, not just a technique

Data first or question first

Environmental economics is data-rich — satellite imagery, sensor networks, administrative permit registries, parcel records — and that abundance tempts a "we have a great dataset, what can we estimate?" approach. JEEM rewards the reverse: a sharp environmental-economic question that the data then answer. A novel dataset is an asset only if it identifies a welfare-relevant parameter the field wants; on its own it is a desk-reject risk ("interesting data, no contribution"). Before committing, write the one-sentence question and the regulator-usable number it targets, then ask whether the data identify it — not the other way around.

The JEEM fit test

JEEM is a field journal: the environmental, resource, or climate content is the point, and the economics must be credible. A paper passes the fit test only if the environmental mechanism is necessary to the contribution — remove it and the paper collapses. Run the question through these gates in order:

1. Is the object environmental/resource-economic? pollution & climate, energy, water, fisheries/forests/land, ecosystem services, environmental regulation & permits, or the nonmarket value of an environmental good. If the externality or resource is just a setting for a labor/IO/public-finance result, JEEM is the wrong field journal.
2. Is there a welfare or policy stake? JEEM rewards numbers a regulator could use — a marginal damage, a willingness-to-pay, a compliance cost, an abatement-cost curve, a resource rent. "X correlates with pollution" is not a JEEM contribution; "the marginal external cost of X is $Y, so the efficient tax is Z" is.
3. Does the method clear the bar for its branch? A causal claim needs a real design (not OLS + controls); a valuation needs a defensible preference-recovery argument; a theory paper needs a comparative static that bites.

Branch-specific scoping

Sibling boundaries (be explicit in the paper)

• vs. JAERE — AERE's own journal and the closest substitute; JEEM is the older Elsevier flagship. Position on contribution, not prestige; do not claim "AERE official journal" status without checking current ownership (待核实).
• vs. AEJ: Economic Policy / JPubE — those reward the general policy/public-finance contribution; JEEM rewards the environmental mechanism and field audience.
• vs. Ecological Economics — that journal is pluralist/interdisciplinary; JEEM is neoclassical welfare economics.
• vs. Nature Climate Change — that is a science venue; JEEM needs the economics (preferences, welfare, optimization), not just an impact estimate.

Worked vignette (illustrative)

A team has clean administrative data on a firm subsidy and finds it raised employment. They want to submit to JEEM because the firms happen to be in renewable energy. Run the fit test: the object is a labor/IO subsidy effect, the welfare stake is jobs not an environmental externality, and the environmental mechanism is not load-bearing — strip out "renewable" and the paper is unchanged. Verdict: reroute to a public-finance or labor venue. Contrast a version that estimates how the subsidy changed abatement and emissions, recovers the implied cost per ton of CO2 abated, and compares it to the social cost of carbon — now the environmental mechanism carries the contribution and a regulator-usable number emerges. That version is a JEEM paper.