jme-topic-selection

name	jme-topic-selection
description	Use when assessing whether a research question fits the Journal of Monetary Economics (JME) — monetary theory and policy, central banking, business cycles, growth, financial intermediation, fiscal interactions, and expectations — before investing in a model or estimation. Checks scope fit and the policy/conceptual payoff bar.

Topic Selection & Scope Fit (jme-topic-selection)

When to trigger

• You have a macro idea but are unsure it is "monetary enough" for JME
• The question is technically interesting but its macro or policy payoff is unclear
• You are choosing between a generalist top journal and a field outlet
• You want to target the Carnegie-Rochester-NYU policy issue or the Gerzensee macro-policy issue

The JME scope

JME publishes monetary economics and macroeconomics broadly defined: monetary theory and policy, central banking, business cycles, growth, financial markets and intermediation, fiscal–monetary interactions, expectations, and the macroeconomic effects of money and finance. It welcomes both theoretical and empirical work, including DSGE / quantitative macro and applied policy analysis. A good JME paper is not a narrow micro-empirical estimate dressed in macro language; it speaks to how money, finance, and policy shape aggregate outcomes.

Two scope tells make JME distinctive. First, one issue each year is devoted to the Carnegie-Rochester-NYU Conference Series on Public Policy — a defining feature signaling JME's appetite for serious monetary/fiscal policy questions — and roughly every two years an additional issue carries proceedings from the Swiss National Bank Study Center Gerzensee macro-policy conference. Second, the journal is equally hospitable to a clean quantitative model (e.g., a DSGE or HANK mechanism) and to a credible empirical study (e.g., the effects of an identified monetary shock).

Fit checklist

• The dependent question is about aggregate behavior, money/finance, or policy — not a self-contained micro effect
• There is a clear monetary, macro, or policy lesson a central banker or macroeconomist would care about
• The paper is either a disciplined quantitative model or a credibly identified empirical study (ideally both)
• The question is first-order, not a marginal refinement of a settled result
• If policy-conference-flavored, consider the Carnegie-Rochester-NYU or Gerzensee fit

Worked fit calls

• Borderline, rescuable. Firm-level pass-through of funding costs to lending rates is micro-banking as posed. It becomes JME-shaped once the estimates feed an aggregation step — e.g., the cross-sectional heterogeneity implies a state-dependent transmission of a 100-bp policy surprise, with the counterfactual computed for the aggregate lending channel.
• Strong fit. A HANK-style model in which the distribution of marginal propensities to consume determines how far forward guidance substitutes for conventional rate cuts: a disciplined quantitative mechanism with a lesson a central bank can act on.
• Off-fit unless re-anchored. An asset-pricing anomaly with no monetary mechanism belongs in a finance journal; the same data speak to JME if the object becomes the term-premium channel of balance-sheet policy or the transmission of policy surprises through intermediary constraints.

Editor screen (three questions before writing a model): Would a central bank research department cite this? Does the answer move a policy counterfactual — a rule comparison, a transmission elasticity, an optimal-response margin? Is the shock or mechanism first-order at business-cycle frequency, rather than a second-decimal refinement?

Off-fit signals (redirect)

• A pure labor/IO/development micro paper with no macro aggregation → a field or generalist journal
• A new estimator with no monetary/macro application → Econometrica / Journal of Econometrics
• A finance-asset-pricing paper with no monetary or macro mechanism → a finance journal
• A descriptive data paper with no conceptual or policy payoff → reconsider the contribution

Fit pass for Journal of Monetary Economics

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the main macro object, the identifying variation, and the policy-relevant counterfactual; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: macro and monetary economists who expect the shock, mechanism, and policy margin to be visible early.

• Do the pass: Score the manuscript on venue fit, novelty, evidence readiness, and audience ownership; reject a prestige-only target when a sibling venue owns the contribution more directly.
• Return a ledger: give claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
• Sibling guard: compare against JIE for open-economy trade/finance emphasis, RED for dynamic macro theory, AEJ Macro for broader field positioning; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
• Stop condition: do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's resources/official-source-map.md has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

Output format

【Question】one sentence (aggregate/monetary/policy?)
【Mode】theoretical / quantitative-DSGE / empirical / mixed
【JME fit】strong / borderline / off-fit + why
【Policy lesson】the macro takeaway in one line
【Special issue?】Carnegie-Rochester-NYU / Gerzensee / regular
【Next step】jme-literature-positioning