Jfqa Literature Positioning

---
name: jfqa-literature-positioning
description: Position a Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis (JFQA) manuscript against the finance frontier — corporate finance, investments, asset pricing, market microstructure, and financial institutions. Use to stake a precise contribution against the relevant literature without a standalone survey, so the paper reads as new to a quantitative-finance audience.
---

# JFQA Literature Positioning (jfqa-literature-positioning)

Use this skill to locate a **JFQA** manuscript against the finance literature so the contribution is unmistakable to the reviewers and the assigned Managing Editor.

## What JFQA expects

- A **tight positioning paragraph**, not a literature-review chapter. State what is known, the specific gap, and what this paper adds.
- Engagement with the **right finance subfield** frontier — corporate finance, investments/asset pricing, microstructure, or institutions — and with the closest recent JFQA / finance-flagship work.
- Honest delineation from **near-neighbor papers**: say explicitly how your sample, design, mechanism, or result differs.

## Process

1. Identify the 5-10 closest papers in your subfield and the one or two that a referee will say "this is already done."
2. Write the contrast in one or two sentences each: what they did, what you do differently, why the difference matters economically.
3. Tie the contribution to JFQA's quantitative ethos — a new measurement, a sharper identification, a model with testable implications, or a result that overturns/refines a stylized fact.
4. Avoid claiming "first to study X" unless you can defend it; finance is crowded.

## Anti-patterns

- A chronological survey that buries the contribution.
- Citing only your own or only old papers; missing the obvious recent competitor.
- Over-claiming novelty a referee can puncture with one citation — which, on a resubmission of a previously rejected paper, must also be disclosed (see jfqa-submission).
- Positioning as "interesting" rather than as a quantitative advance.

## Output format

```
【Subfield frontier】corporate / investments / microstructure / institutions
【Closest rivals】2-4 papers + the one-line contrast each
【Gap】the specific unanswered quantitative question
【Our contribution】one sentence, defensible
【Next step】jfqa-identification-strategy
```