brycewang-stanford Literature Positioning for RED (red-literature-positioning)
When to trigger
- Writing the introduction and related-work sections for a RED submission
- Unsure which strand of the dynamic-economics literature the paper extends
- Pitching the contribution to the SED community versus a generalist top-5 framing
How to position for RED
RED's readers are the SED community working on dynamic models. Position the paper inside the method lineage, not just the topic:
- Name the modeling tradition you extend (e.g., RBC/DSGE, Aiyagari/Bewley–Huggett heterogeneous agents, Krusell–Smith aggregate-uncertainty methods, search/matching, endogenous growth, HANK).
- State the quantitative gap precisely: which moment the prior models miss, which mechanism is absent, which policy environment is unmodeled, or which computational barrier you remove.
- Distinguish your contribution type — a new mechanism, a new solution/estimation method, a new quantitative finding, or a new empirical regularity that disciplines the model.
- Use author-year (Harvard-style) citations throughout, consistent with RED's reference system.
Because RED's scope is method-defined, the literature you cite should be dynamic-model literature. A paper that mostly cites reduced-form empirical work without a dynamic-modeling anchor reads as a poor fit; tie empirical references back to what they discipline in the model.
Checklist
- The modeling lineage is named and the paper's place in it is explicit
- The marginal advance is stated as a quantitative/mechanistic delta, not "we also study X"
- Closely related SED-community papers are cited and differentiated, not ignored
- Citations are clean author-year; reference list complete and consistent
Anti-patterns
- A generalist "big literature" sweep that never locates the paper in a dynamic-model tradition
- Burying the closest competitor instead of confronting it head-on
- Mixed or inconsistent citation styles instead of clean author-year
SED-reader positioning move
For each cited strand, name the state variable, shock, friction, or numerical method that connects it to your paper. A RED reader should be able to see the dynamic lineage without translating from a general-interest pitch.
Use this sequence:
- Closest model/method and its missing mechanism.
- Closest quantitative result and the moment it cannot match.
- Closest computation/estimation approach and the constraint it imposes.
- Your paper's delta in one sentence.
Do not spend equal space on literatures that supply motivation but do not discipline the dynamic model.
Lineage map template
Write the positioning as a lineage map before drafting prose:
LINEAGE MAP — [paper title]
Tradition: [e.g., incomplete-markets / Aiyagari–Bewley–Huggett]
State variables: [what the tradition tracks: wealth distribution, beliefs, match capital]
Closest model: [author-year] — misses [mechanism]
Closest moment: [author-year] — cannot match [moment + magnitude]
Closest method: [author-year] — constrained by [computational or estimation limit]
This paper: adds [delta] and shows [quantitative consequence]
Every line should name something dynamic — a state variable, a shock process, a friction, or a solution method. If a line can only be filled with a topic word ("inequality", "housing"), the positioning is still generalist and not yet RED-shaped.
Positioning vignette: a firm-dynamics draft
A draft embeds collateral constraints in a Hopenhayn-style entry/exit model. Illustrative map: tradition = heterogeneous-firm dynamics; closest model = a frictionless benchmark whose firm-size distribution is too thin at entry; closest moment = an exit hazard by age that prior calibrations overshoot by roughly a third (illustrative figure); delta = a borrowing constraint that bends the hazard while preserving the aggregate-TFP discipline of the benchmark. The introduction's first four sentences fall straight out of this map, each anchored by one author-year citation.
Strand-weighting rule
Allocate related-work space by what disciplines the model: strands that supply calibration targets, solution methods, or competing mechanisms earn paragraphs; strands that only motivate the topic earn one sentence with a representative citation. SED readers forgive a short motivation; they do not forgive a missing comparison to the nearest quantitative experiment in their own tradition.
Supplementary resources
../../resources/official-source-map.md— author-year style and scope sources