brycewang-stanford Literature Positioning (eer-literature-positioning)
When to trigger
- The "what's new here" sentence is vague, defensive, or missing
- Reviewers say the contribution is "incremental" or "already known"
- The related-work section is a list of citations, not an argument
- You cannot name the 3–5 papers your result directly displaces or extends
The EER positioning bar
EER is general-interest across all of economics, so the contribution must be legible to a reader outside your subfield while withstanding the scrutiny of those inside it. That means a two-layer positioning: (1) a broad-interest hook — why a generalist should care — and (2) a precise frontier delta — exactly which result you extend, overturn, or quantify, with the closest 3–5 papers named. Single-anonymized review means the referees are likely the authors you cite: be accurate and fair, neither dismissive nor over-deferential.
Positioning moves
1. Locate the frontier precisely
- Name the closest current papers (not the founding classics) your result speaks to.
- For each, state in one clause what they did and what they left open.
- Distinguish your contribution from concurrent/working-paper work explicitly.
2. State the marginal contribution as a delta
- Use a "we are first to / we show that, unlike X, …" sentence that is true and checkable.
- Pick one primary contribution; relegate secondary ones to a short list.
- Tie the delta to the general-interest hook so breadth and novelty reinforce.
3. Position across fields where relevant
- EER readers cross fields: connect a macro result to its micro evidence, an IO result to its welfare reading, etc.
- A cross-field bridge is itself a breadth signal EER rewards.
4. Calibrate the claim
- Match the size of the claim to the strength of the design/theory (see
eer-identification,eer-theory-model). - Pre-empt "already known" by citing the near-miss and saying precisely how you differ.
Checklist
- The 3–5 closest frontier papers are named, each with "did / left open"
- One primary marginal contribution stated as a checkable delta
- Broad-interest hook present and tied to the frontier delta
- Concurrent work acknowledged and distinguished
- Citations are fair and accurate (referees may be the cited authors)
- Claim size matches design/theory strength — no overselling
- At least one cross-field bridge where the result naturally travels
Anti-patterns
- A related-work paragraph that lists citations without an argumentative gap
- Citing only 1990s classics and missing the live frontier the referees work on
- "First to study X" claims that a single search would falsify
- Dismissing the nearest competitor instead of crediting and differentiating it
- Burying the contribution so a generalist editor cannot find it before desk-screening
- Overselling a field-internal increment as a general-interest breakthrough
Worked vignette (illustrative)
A public-finance paper estimates the incidence of a carbon tax. A weak positioning says "we contribute to the carbon-tax literature." An EER positioning says: "Closest are A (estimates incidence assuming fixed pass-through) and B (allows pass-through but ignores informal substitution); we relax both and show informal substitution shifts incidence toward poorer households by ~30% (illustrative) — a general lesson about how informal margins change the distributional reading of any consumption tax." Generalist hook (who bears taxes) + precise delta (relaxes two assumptions of named papers) + cross-field travel (any consumption tax).
Output format
【Broad-interest hook】one sentence a generalist cares about
【Closest frontier】3–5 papers, each "did X / left open Y"
【Marginal contribution】the checkable delta (primary)
【Cross-field bridge】where the result travels
【Claim calibration】matched to design/theory strength? [Y/N]
【Next step】eer-identification (empirical) or eer-theory-model (theory)