Rof Literature Positioning

Literature Positioning (rof-literature-positioning)

When to trigger

• The related-work section reads as a survey, not a staking of position
• You are unsure you have found the closest prior finance papers
• A referee could say "this is already in [paper X]"
• Citations skew to one's own subfield and miss the general-finance frame

The RoF citation norm (strict)

RoF enforces a strong author-responsibility citation norm: authors must search for and cite relevant work, and not being aware of a paper that should reasonably have been found is not a valid defense — omissions can be sanctioned. Combined with the top-three-finance-journal standard, positioning must be (a) complete with respect to the closest work and (b) framed for a general finance audience. Because RoF spans empirical and theoretical finance, place the paper relative to both the evidence and the mechanism it speaks to.

Positioning moves

1. Map the frontier — identify the 3–6 closest papers (often top-three finance) and state, for each, what they do and where they stop.
2. Stake the delta — one clause per close paper: "X shows A; we show B." No vague "we complement."
3. Bridge empirical and theory — if empirical, cite the theory you test or discipline; if theory, cite the empirical regularity you rationalize.
4. Exhaustive search — run keyword, citation-chain, and recent-working-paper searches; assume a referee owns the paper you missed.
5. No standalone survey — weave positioning into the introduction and a short related-work paragraph; the 60-page cap (incl. bibliography) penalizes bloat.

Search protocol sized to the sanction norm

Because an omission at RoF can be sanctioned, the search must be documented, not vibes:

1. Keyword pass over the top-three finance journals plus RoF itself, going back roughly a decade.
2. Citation chain: forward and backward from the three closest papers (cited-by trails both ways).
3. Working-paper sweep: SSRN FEN, NBER, CEPR Discussion Papers, and the last three EFA annual-meeting programs — RoF's own community circulates the closest competitors there before they hit journals.
4. European-antecedent check: if the paper runs on Datastream, Bankscope/Orbis, or ECB data, search for the country-specific predecessors a European Associate Editor will know by heart.
5. Keep a query log with dates; if a referee later names a missed paper, the log demonstrates good-faith search rather than negligence.

Micro-example — from survey paragraph to staked position

Before: "A large literature studies bank competition and stability [eight citations]." After: "Keeley (1990) ties charter value to risk-taking; Boyd and De Nicolò (2005) reverse the sign theoretically; using Bankscope data on 1,800 European banks we show both forces operate, with competition-fragility dominating only above a market-share threshold — the margin neither paper can identify." One clause per pole of the debate, then the delta. (Illustrative numbers; the cited debate is real and well known.)

Bibliography economics under the page ceiling

• Every reference must be load-bearing: it either anchors a delta, supplies a method, or documents a fact you use. Courtesy citations cost cap pages at RoF without buying goodwill.
• Cite the published version once a working paper appears in print, in Chicago style throughout.
• For a general-interest venue spanning empirical and theoretical finance, include at least one anchor from each side when the paper bridges them — a theory-only or evidence-only reference list signals field-journal framing.
• When two literatures could claim the paper, position in the one where the contribution is largest and acknowledge the other in a single sentence.

Anti-patterns

• A two-page literature review that never says what this paper adds.
• Citing only your own subfield and missing the general-finance reference everyone knows.
• Omitting a close paper and hoping the referee misses it — RoF treats this as your fault and may sanction it.
• Padding the bibliography (it counts against the 60-page cap) instead of citing precisely.

Output format

【Closest papers】[3-6], venue + where each stops
【Delta per paper】X→A, we→B
【Empirical↔theory bridge】mechanism/evidence link
【Search done】keywords / citation-chain / WP scan [Y/N]
【Omission risk】close paper not yet cited? [Y/N]
【Next step】rof-identification-strategy

Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → Review-of-Finance-Skills/skills/rof-literature-positioning/SKILL.md