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wber-literature-positioning

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Use when staking a contribution against the development-economics frontier for a The World Bank Economic Review (WBER) manuscript, and ruling out its sibling journals (JDE, World Development, Economic Development and Cultural Change, the Research Observer). Sharpens the gap and the boundary claims; it does not run analysis or write the intro.

World-Bank-Economic-Review-Skills/skills/wber-literature-positioning/SKILL.md

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# Literature Positioning (wber-literature-positioning)

## When to trigger

- The "what's new vs. the frontier" sentence is vague or oversold
- A referee could plausibly say "this is incremental on [paper X]"
- The paper sits between two literatures (e.g., impact evaluation and trade) and the home base is unclear
- You cannot articulate why this is a WBER paper rather than a JDE or World Development paper
- The contribution is framed as "first to study Y in country Z" (a setting, not a contribution)

## The WBER contribution standard

WBER rewards papers that move the **development-economics evidence base** in a way a practitioner would notice — a credibly identified effect, a new measurement, a resolved puzzle, or a mechanism pinned down — not a marginal extension. Because WBER's audience includes economists *and* policymakers, the positioning must do double duty: situate the paper in the academic frontier AND signal why the result matters for development policy. A contribution stated purely as "we are the first to look at X in country Y" reads as a setting, not a contribution; WBER referees want the *general* lesson.
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