Journal Of Economic Geography

Journal of Economic Geography (journal-of-economic-geography)

Journal positioning

The Journal of Economic Geography sits at the intersection of economics and geography, publishing work on the spatial organization of economic activity: agglomeration, clusters, location, trade geography, and regional development. It is genuinely interdisciplinary — read and authored by both economists and economic geographers — so it spans formal spatial-economics modeling and more institutional, qualitative geography. What wins here is a paper that advances understanding of where economic activity happens and why, and that engages both traditions rather than ignoring one. The readership is spatial economists, regional scientists, and economic geographers.

This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the Oxford University Press / journal site and the submission system.

When to trigger

• The author names JoEG as the target venue.
• A spatial / regional paper bridges economics and geography and the author is unsure whether to aim for an econ field journal or a geography venue.
• An applied paper has a strong spatial / agglomeration dimension that needs re-framing toward economic geography.
• The author needs JoEG's desk-reject risks and a credible spatial-economics / geography alternative list.

Scope & topic fit

• Agglomeration economies, clusters, knowledge spillovers, and the geography of innovation.
• Location of firms and workers, economic-geography models of trade, and the spatial structure of economies.
• Regional and urban development, regional inequality, and the geography of growth.
• Migration, labor mobility, and spatial sorting; institutional and evolutionary economic geography.
• Both quantitative spatial economics and rigorous qualitative / institutional geography are in scope.

Method & evidence bar

• Genuine interdisciplinary engagement: quantitative work should engage geography's concepts; geography work should be analytically rigorous.
• Quantitative spatial / regional claims need credible identification (spatial confounding, sorting, and reflection problems taken seriously) and appropriate spatial inference.
• Structural spatial-economics models need transparent identification and defensible calibration / estimation.
• Qualitative and institutional work needs explicit design and analytic transparency; the spatial contribution must be central.

Structure & house style

• The introduction should state the spatial / geographic question, the approach, and what the paper adds to understanding the geography of economic activity.
• Frame the contribution so it speaks to both economists and economic geographers; engage both literatures explicitly.
• Use an abstract and (where applicable) JEL/keyword codes; relegate robustness, derivations, and secondary results to an appendix.
• Maps and spatial exhibits should be clear and well-constructed; magnitudes and spatial patterns should be legible.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked.
• Search the live site for "Journal of Economic Geography submission guidelines / instructions to authors" and follow the current OUP version.
• Re-check word/figure limits, abstract and JEL/keyword requirements, reference style, anonymization expectations, and disclosure.
• Re-check the current data and code availability policy and any spatial-data / mapping requirements.
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• One sentence stating what this adds to understanding the geography of economic activity.
• The contribution is stated as a spatial mechanism / identification / regional insight, not as a significant coefficient.
• The paper engages both the economics and the economic-geography literatures.
• Spatial confounding, sorting, and inference are handled credibly; qualitative work is transparent.
• Maps, exhibits, data policy, and formatting meet the current guide.

Common desk-reject triggers

• A non-spatial economics paper with geography added only as a label.
• A quantitative spatial paper that ignores spatial confounding, sorting, or proper spatial inference.
• A paper that engages only one tradition (pure econ or pure geography) when the venue expects both.
• Descriptive regional analysis with no clear contribution to the geography of economic activity.

Re-routing decision

• Core urban / spatial economics with econ identification → journal-of-urban-economics; general-interest spatial results → american-economic-review.
• Regional development in the global South / policy-engaged → world-development; trade-geography with international focus → journal-of-international-economics.
• Innovation-and-geography with a science-policy lens → research-policy; broad applied micro → aej-applied-economics.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Journal of Economic Geography
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
[Method/evidence] <does the spatial contribution and interdisciplinary engagement clear this venue's bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <submission system / JEL-keywords / data-code / spatial-data / maps>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>