Jole Literature Positioning

---
name: jole-literature-positioning
description: Use when positioning a Journal of Labor Economics (JOLE) manuscript against the labor literature — staking the contribution against the closest papers under Chicago author-date citation norms, not writing a standalone survey. Positions the paper; it does not run analysis.
---

# Literature Positioning (jole-literature-positioning)

## When to trigger

- The related-work section reads as a survey rather than a contribution stake
- It is unclear which papers you build on and which you improve on
- Citations are not in Chicago author-date style or are ordered wrong in-text
- A referee could say "this has been done" and you have no crisp rebuttal

## Positioning for a labor audience

JOLE referees are labor economists who know the field's frontier. Positioning is not a literature dump; it is a **precise stake**: which two or three papers are closest, and exactly what you add (better identification, new or linked data, a distinguished mechanism, a new population or institution). Because the journal is **general-interest within labor**, also locate the paper for labor economists in adjacent subfields — a wage-structure result should be legible to someone who studies migration or family economics.

Citation mechanics are JOLE-specific and load-bearing here:

- **Chicago (University of Chicago Press) author-date** style.
- In-text citations are ordered **chronologically, then alphabetically within the same year** (a, b disambiguation for same author / same year) — **not** purely alphabetical.
- **Three or more authors** are cited as first author **"et al."**
- Since review is **single-blind** (non-anonymized), cite your own prior work normally — no awkward blinding.

## How to stake the contribution

1. **Name the frontier.** Identify the 2–3 closest labor papers and state, in one clause each, what they established.
2. **State the gap.** What did they leave unidentified, unmeasured, or unexplained?
3. **Place your paper.** One sentence: what you add relative to each (cleaner design / new data / mechanism / population).
4. **Avoid double-counting.** Do not re-survey a literature your contribution does not actually engage; cite enough to locate, no more — the ~20,000-word economy is unforgiving of padding.
5. **Connect adjacent subfields.** A short bridge sentence so non-specialist labor readers see the relevance.

## Checklist

- [ ] The 2–3 closest labor papers named, with what each established
- [ ] The gap your paper fills stated explicitly
- [ ] What you add vs. each closest paper is one crisp sentence
- [ ] Positioned for labor economists in adjacent subfields, not only specialists
- [ ] **Chicago author-date**; in-text **chronological-then-alphabetical**; "et al." for 3+ authors
- [ ] Self-citations written naturally (single-blind)
- [ ] No standalone survey; citations locate the contribution, nothing more

## Anti-patterns

- A two-page survey that never says what is new
- Citing twenty papers but not naming the two closest competitors
- Purely alphabetical in-text ordering instead of chronological-then-alphabetical
- Blinding self-citations (unnecessary — JOLE is single-blind)
- Positioning only against one narrow subfield when the claim is broader
- Padding the literature to look thorough at the expense of the word budget

## Output format

```
【Closest papers】[2–3] — what each established:
【Gap】what they left open:
【Your add】one sentence vs. each:
【Adjacent-subfield bridge】one sentence:
【Citation style】Chicago author-date, chronological-then-alpha, "et al." 3+? [Y/N]
【Next step】jole-identification-strategy
```