Topic Selection & Fit (jfe-topic-selection)

When to trigger

• You have data or a setting but no sharp economic question yet
• You are unsure whether the idea clears the JFE contribution bar
• You cannot state in one sentence what is new relative to existing finance papers
• You are choosing between JFE, JF, and RFS as the target outlet

What JFE rewards

JFE (Elsevier; North-Holland; ISSN 0304-405X; founded 1974 by Michael C. Jensen) is one of the top-3 finance journals and publishes rigorous, methodologically demanding empirical corporate finance and asset pricing, plus the financial-economics theory that supports them. Its stated scope centers on capital markets, financial institutions, corporate finance, corporate governance, and the economics of organizations. The durable preference: a clean economic question, answered with a credible design and exhaustive evidence.

The two JFE best-paper prizes signal the two halves of the journal's taste: the Jensen Prize (best corporate-finance / organizations paper) and the Fama-DFA Prize (best asset-pricing / capital-markets paper). Aim a JFE submission at the kind of paper that could plausibly compete for one of them. (Editor-in-Chief Toni M. Whited, Michigan, since 2021; verify current scope on jfinec.com.)

Fit test — answer all four before proceeding: