Jimf Literature Positioning

Literature Positioning (jimf-literature-positioning)

When to trigger

• The intro lists related work but never says what this paper does that the frontier does not
• A referee writes "this is close to [Rey on the global financial cycle / Gopinath on dominant currency / Miranda-Agrippino-Rey on spillovers] — what is new?"
• The contribution reads as "we extend X to country Y / sample Z" rather than a new object
• The paper could be read as a JIE, JME, or JFE contribution and the JIMF claim is not staked

How JIMF expects positioning to be built

JIMF is a field journal, so positioning is judged against the international monetary-finance literature specifically, not all of macro or all of finance. The bar is: name the closest two or three papers, state the precise margin on which you move past them, and show the margin matters for an open-economy question. The frontier clusters into recognizable programs — the global financial cycle and the trilemma/dilemma debate; dominant-currency pricing and exchange-rate pass-through; monetary-policy spillovers and the international transmission channel; capital-flow push vs. pull and the literature on capital controls / FX intervention; sovereign risk, original sin, and external debt; and international asset pricing (UIP deviations, carry, currency risk premia). Locate your paper in one of these and differentiate within it.

The discipline this imposes: you are not differentiating from "the literature," you are differentiating from the two or three specific papers a JIMF referee in your sub-program will have in mind. Identify them honestly — they are usually the ones you most wish did not exist — and make the margin against them precise. A positioning that survives contact with the closest competitor survives the referee.

Positioning a policy paper vs. an academic paper

The same result can be positioned two ways, and JIMF accepts both — but pick one and commit. A policy-led positioning differentiates on external validity, country coverage, and the bounded implication for a central bank or the IMF; its closest competitors are other policy-relevant cross-country studies, and its contribution is often "we provide the first credible estimate for the relevant policy population." An academic-led positioning differentiates on identification or a new object; its competitors are the methodological frontier papers, and its contribution is "we identify what prior work could only correlate." A paper that tries to be both at once usually convinces neither referee; lead with one and let the other be a benefit.

Drawing the sibling boundary in the intro

Spend one or two sentences placing the paper against the journal that could plausibly claim it. Against JIE: emphasize the monetary/financial (not real-trade) channel. Against JME/JMCB: emphasize the cross-border/open-economy margin (not domestic monetary policy). Against JFE/RF: emphasize the international risk or exchange-rate object (not a closed-economy asset-pricing puzzle). This is not throat-clearing — it is how a JIMF editor confirms the paper is theirs.

Structuring the related-work section

JIMF does not reward an exhaustive survey; it rewards a map with your pin on it. Group the literature into the two or three streams your paper touches, give each stream one sentence and its representative paper, then place yourself. A useful shape: "Three strands bear on this question. The first [stream + 1 cite] establishes X but takes Y as given. The second [stream + 1 cite] relaxes Y but in a closed economy. We sit at their intersection: [your move]." This signals command of the field without burning four pages, and it makes the gap visible rather than asserted.

When you cite a foundational result, cite it precisely: the global-financial-cycle and monetary-autonomy claim, the dominant-currency-paradigm pass-through result, the high-frequency monetary-spillover finding, the original-sin / sovereign-external-debt argument — each has a specific paper and a specific claim, and an international-finance referee will notice a loose attribution. Precision here buys credibility for the whole positioning.

A practical test for the related-work draft: hand it to a colleague who works in a different field and ask them to state, in one sentence, what your paper adds. If they cannot, the positioning is buried in the survey and needs the pin made explicit — the contribution sentence should be findable without reading the whole section.