| name | jru-topic-selection |
| description | Use when deciding whether a question belongs in the Journal of Risk and Uncertainty (JRU) and how to frame it as a risk/uncertainty primitive. Tests scope fit and sibling boundaries; it does not invent evidence or citations. |
Topic Selection (jru-topic-selection)
When to trigger
- You have a behavioral or decision result and are unsure JRU is the right home rather than a method-general or broad-behavioral venue
- The question is phrased as "people do X" but does not yet name a risk or uncertainty primitive (a utility curvature, a probability-weighting parameter, an ambiguity attitude, a VSL, an insurance elasticity)
- A coauthor wants to "add a risk angle" to a paper whose core object is really a market, a game, or a generic nudge
- The draft could plausibly go to JRU, Experimental Economics, JEBO, or Theory and Decision and the team needs the boundary drawn
What JRU actually rewards
JRU's center of gravity is the economics of decision-making under risk and uncertainty: expected utility and its descendants (prospect theory, rank-dependent / cumulative prospect theory, ambiguity and Knightian uncertainty), the measurement of risk and ambiguity preferences, the value of a statistical life and other risk-money tradeoffs, and insurance, precaution, and intertemporal risk. A JRU paper's contribution is a sharper representation, a cleaner measurement, or a more credible estimate of one of these primitives — not merely a new domain where a known anomaly appears.
Use this triage before committing the venue:
| Your core object | JRU fit | If weak, where it likely belongs |
|---|
| A utility / probability-weighting representation with behavioral content | Strong — jru-theory-model | Theory and Decision (if pure axiomatics, no measurement) |
| An incentive-compatible elicitation of risk or ambiguity attitudes | Strong — jru-identification | Experimental Economics (if the contribution is the method, not the risk primitive) |
| A VSL / mortality-risk valuation or insurance-demand estimate | Strong — JRU's signature empirical territory | health/labor field journal (if risk is incidental) |
| A general behavioral anomaly (default effects, social preferences) | Weak unless re-anchored on a risk primitive | JEBO, JEEA, a field journal |
| A market design or equilibrium where risk is a feature, not the object | Weak | GEB, a micro-theory journal |
How to re-anchor a borderline paper
- State the contribution in one sentence as a claim about a primitive: "We show probability weighting is [steeper / flatter] when [condition]," not "We find people are inconsistent."
- Name which JRU readership would cite it — decision theorists, experimental risk researchers, or VSL/insurance empiricists — and which would desk-skip it.
- Identify the parameter or function the paper moves. If you cannot name one, the paper is probably a sibling-journal paper wearing a risk costume.
- Separate what the draft already shows from what still needs a model, an experiment, or an estimation pass.
- Hand off to
jru-literature-positioning if a primitive is named; otherwise return to jru-workflow to reconsider the venue.
What gets desk-screened at JRU
The Editor-in-Chief (W. Kip Viscusi) reserves the right to return papers that do not fit, so the topic decision is also a desk-rejection-avoidance decision. Papers most at risk of a fast return:
- Risk-incidental applications. A labor or health study where uncertainty is background, not the object of measurement — better suited to a field journal.
- Method demonstrations. A clever new lab procedure whose payoff is the procedure, not a sharper risk primitive — Experimental Economics territory.
- Broad behavioral grab-bags. Several anomalies loosely themed around "irrationality" with no single decision-theoretic claim — JEBO territory.
- Pure axiomatics with no behavioral or measurement hook. Elegant but content-free for JRU's interface readership — Theory and Decision territory.
- Underpowered one-off experiments that cannot pin a parameter with usable precision.
Worked vignette (illustrative)
A team has survey evidence that small firms under-insure against rare disasters and wants to send it to JRU. As written, the object is a market outcome (takeup), so it reads as a field-economics paper. The re-anchored version makes the primitive the target: it elicits the firms' subjective disaster probabilities and ambiguity attitudes, then shows under-insurance is driven by ambiguity aversion rather than by misperception — a claim about a risk primitive that JRU's readership owns. The application becomes the setting; the decision parameter becomes the contribution.
Drawing the four sibling boundaries precisely
The boundary is not "is it about risk?" but "is the contribution a risk primitive?" Use these one-line tests:
- vs. Experimental Economics: if you could swap the risk task for any other well-incentivized task and the contribution would survive, it is a method paper, not a JRU paper.
- vs. JEBO: if the result is one of several loosely related behavioral findings with no single decision-theoretic claim, it is broad-behavioral, not JRU.
- vs. Theory and Decision: if the model has no behavioral or measurement implication anyone could test, it is pure axiomatics, not JRU.
- vs. Management Science (decision analysis): if the contribution is a managerial decision tool rather than a positive claim about how people value risk, it is applied decision analysis, not JRU.
When two venues genuinely both fit, JRU wins if the primitive is the headline and the application is the setting; the sibling wins if it is the reverse.
Checklist
Anti-patterns
- "Risk-washing": bolting the word risk onto a paper whose real object is a nudge, a market, or a social preference
- Pitching a pure axiomatization with no behavioral or measurement implication (that is Theory and Decision's lane)
- Pitching a clean experiment whose only novelty is the procedure, not what it reveals about a risk primitive (Experimental Economics' lane)
- Claiming "general interest" breadth that JRU does not promise — its readership is specialized in risk and uncertainty
- Inventing editor names, fees, or scope quotes instead of marking them 待核实
Output format
【Journal】Journal of Risk and Uncertainty
【Skill】jru-topic-selection
【Verdict】fit / re-anchor / reroute to sibling
【Primitive named】curvature / weighting / ambiguity / VSL / insurance / intertemporal
【One-sentence contribution】<claim about the primitive>
【Sibling boundary】why not Experimental Economics / JEBO / Theory and Decision
【Source status】verified / 待核实 / not asserted
【Next skill】jru-literature-positioning
