Agent Skills
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jet-topic-selection
GitHub用于评估项目是否符合《经济理论杂志》(JET) 的选题范围。核心标准是必须具备严谨、原创的理论贡献，实证或计算工作需以理论为基础。通过决策规则和分类表判断是否适合投稿 JET 或转投其他期刊。
Trigger Scenarios
决定成果应投 JET 还是领域/实证期刊
拥有数据、实验或计算结果，想确认其是否适用于 JET
在多个成果中选择优先展示的项目
Install
npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill jet-topic-selection -g -y
SKILL.md
Frontmatter
{
"name": "jet-topic-selection",
"description": "Use when testing whether a project clears the Journal of Economic Theory (JET) scope gate — a rigorous, original theoretical contribution in a core theory area, with empirical\/computational work only when firmly grounded in theory."
}
Topic Selection (jet-topic-selection)
When to trigger
- Deciding whether a result belongs at JET versus a field or empirical journal
- You have data, an experiment, or a computation and want to know if it can go to JET
- Choosing which of several results to lead with
The JET scope gate
JET publishes across mechanism design, information economics, decision theory, game theory, matching, market design, political economy, and finance / macroeconomic / monetary theory — broad general theory in one venue, not a subfield niche. The single deciding criterion is a rigorous, original theoretical contribution. Ask three questions:
- Is the core deliverable a theorem (or a genuinely new model/characterization)? If the headline is a regression coefficient or a calibration with no new theoretical result, JET is off-fit — regardless of how clean the empirics are.
- Is it original and non-trivial? A restatement of a known result, or a special case of an existing theorem, will not clear the desk screen (see jet-review-process).
- If there is empirical / experimental / quantitative / computational content, is it firmly grounded in theory? JET admits such work only as the application or test of a theoretical contribution that is itself the paper's point — not as a stand-alone empirical paper.
Decision rule
- Lead with the theory. State the result you would put in the abstract as a proposition/theorem. If you cannot, the project is not yet a JET paper.
- Generality vs. tractability. A clean result under transparent assumptions usually beats a more general result that no referee can verify (see jet-identification-strategy).
- Subfield routing. Name the area early — submissions are routed to the matching editor.
Deliverable-type scope table
| Your core deliverable | JET verdict | If off-fit, reroute |
|---|---|---|
| New characterization / existence / impossibility theorem in a core area | in scope — lead with it | — |
| Counterexample overturning a folk presumption | in scope when the presumption matters to a literature | frame the economics of why the presumption mattered |
| New solution concept or preference axiomatization | in scope; expect heavy scrutiny of the axioms' behavioral content | — |
| Asset-pricing result whose substance is stochastic-analysis machinery (semimartingales, no-arbitrage functional analysis) | usually a better fit at a mathematical-finance venue; JET wants the economics of the theorem | finance theory belongs at JET when incentives, information, or equilibrium do the work |
| Structural estimation / calibration exercise | off-fit regardless of model quality | empirical or quantitative-macro journals |
| Market-design algorithm with performance proofs | in scope when the theorem is the contribution | otherwise an OR/CS venue |
Vignette: a matching project at the gate
A team holds (i) a stability-existence theorem for matching with regional constraints, (ii) simulations on synthetic data, and (iii) a policy application. Running the three questions:
- Q1: yes — the existence theorem is the deliverable; the simulations and policy story are not.
- Q2: check against the closest constrained-matching theorem before claiming novelty; if the result is a special case of a published substitutes condition, it will not clear the screen.
- Q3: the simulations only exhibit the constrained core's shape, so they compress into one numbered Example with a script (jet-data-analysis).
Verdict: JET-ready — lead with the theorem, demote the policy narrative to one motivation paragraph, and name "matching / market design" for editor routing.
Lead-result selection when you have several
- Prefer the result whose assumptions are cleanest to state, even if a sibling result is technically harder — the lead theorem is what the desk screen reads.
- A characterization beats an existence result as the headline when both are proved; existence can follow as a corollary section.
- Never lead with the comparative static if the underlying equilibrium object is itself new.
Anti-patterns
- An applied-micro or finance paper with a token model bolted on
- A computational exercise with no characterization result behind it
- A marginal generalization of a published theorem framed as new
Output format
【Core result】<the theorem/characterization in one sentence>
【Scope fit】in-scope theory area: <area> | off-fit: <why>
【Empirical/computational content】none | grounded-in-theory | stand-alone (off-fit)
【Verdict】JET-ready / reframe / send elsewhere → jet-literature-positioning
Version History
- 1839142 Current 2026-07-05 13:35
