Jfi Literature Positioning

---
name: jfi-literature-positioning
description: Use when working on a Journal of Financial Intermediation manuscript to stake the contribution against the banking and financial-intermediation frontier — name the closest intermediation papers and the precise mechanism gap you fill. It positions; it does not write a standalone survey.
---

# Literature Positioning (jfi-literature-positioning)

## When to trigger

- Writing or revising the introduction and related-work section for a JFI paper
- A referee said the contribution relative to existing intermediation work is unclear

## The JFI positioning bar

JFI readers are **banking and financial-intermediation specialists**. Position the paper against the
intermediation frontier — relationship lending and monitoring, liquidity transformation and runs, bank
capital and regulation, credit supply and the lending channel, information asymmetry and screening,
financial-contracting and security design — not against generic finance. Name the **two to four closest
papers** and state the **specific mechanism or margin** you add, change, or overturn.

Distinguish your work from neighboring fields that JFI brushes against: pure asset pricing, pure
corporate finance where banks are incidental, and macro-finance with no institutional channel. If your
closest comparisons are all outside intermediation, that is a signal to recheck fit (see
jfi-topic-selection).

## How to position

- **For empirics:** "Closest is X (which shows A using design D); we differ by identifying mechanism M with
  a new bank/loan-level design and data, isolating the intermediary channel X cannot."
- **For theory:** "Model Y delivers result R under assumption A; we relax A (or add friction F) and obtain
  a different equilibrium prediction, generating a testable implication."
- Keep it a **positioning argument**, not a survey: every cite earns its place by sharpening the contrast.

## Anti-patterns

- A literature dump with no mechanism contrast
- Citing only general-finance landmarks while ignoring the intermediation sub-literature a JFI referee owns
- Claiming novelty without naming the closest paper you improve upon
- Positioning against a field journal's question rather than an intermediation mechanism

## Output format

```
【Closest papers】2–4, each with its result + method
【Your delta】the mechanism/margin you add or overturn
【Field boundary】why this is intermediation, not adjacent finance
【Next skill】jfi-identification-strategy
```