Trigger Timing
- The review lacks Chinese classics, or consists entirely of English literature
- The review lackstheoretical literature(the point reviewers for Economic Research most often pick on)
- The review is written in a "listing" style rather than a "dialogic" style
Structural Norms
Economic Research prefersthree-layer structurereviews:
- First layer: theoretical literature(mainly English, with a small number of Chinese classics) — establish the theoretical coordinates of the question
- Second layer: empirical literature(equal emphasis on Chinese and English) — sort out existing empirical findings
- Third layer: this paper's position— clearly state "how this paper differs from existing research"
Differences from Management World reviews
Economic Research places more weight onwhether the theoretical literature is adequate. A manuscript that does not cite theoretical or classic authors such as Acemoglu / Aghion / Helpman / Krugman / North / Lin Yifu / Qian Yingyi / Zhou Li'an will be picked on by reviewers.
Chinese-English literature ratio
Rules of thumb:
- Total citations 50–100
- Share of Chinese literature 30%–50%(cannot be <20%)
- Share of theoretical literature ≥ 20%(not empirical applications, but theoretical derivations or reviews)
- Share of literature within five years ≥ 40%
- Share of top-journal literature ≥ 35%(AER / QJE / JPE / Econometrica / RES / Economic Research / Management World / China Economic Quarterly)
Must-cite pitfall-avoidance checklist
- Have you cited theclassic theoretical literatureof the theoretical branch you belong to? (not textbooks, but original papers)
- Have you cited top-journal papers on the same topic from the past 3 years?
- Have you cited relevantChinese classic reviews? (same topic in Economic Research, Management World)
- Do the citations cover three types: theory, methods, and local empirical evidence?
- Have you avoided "clustered self-citations"? (self-citations ≤ 3)
Review sentence templates
[作者 (年份)] 利用[数据 / 方法]研究了[问题]，发现……。
然而，该研究[局限]，未考虑[本文要补的空白]。
与之相比，本文……。
Each review paragraph should contain at least one of "compared with / distinguished from / this paper extends / this paper supplements".
Dialogic vs listing style
Economic Research prefersdialogicreviews (studies responding to one another) rather thanlisting style(naming authors in order).
Wrong (listing style)
Zhang San (2020) studied tax administration issues, Li Si (2021) studied digitalization issues, and Wang Wu (2022) studied corporate tax avoidance issues.
Correct (dialogic — grouped by theme, showing disagreements, and giving this paper's position)
Digitalization of tax administration has been a research hotspot in recent years (Zhang San, 2020; Li Si, 2021), but such research is mainly carried out from the XX perspective, with limited attention to the YY mechanism. A few studies have attempted to start from YY (Wang Wu, 2022), but their data are limited to ZZ. Following this line of thought, this paper uses AA data to further examine BB.
Judgment standard: after removing all author names, if the review can still convey "what study A says, how study B rebuts it, and how this paper positions itself", it is dialogic.
Connecting with the statement of this paper's contribution
The end of the literature review must derive the differentiated positioning of this paper, template:
The important differences between this paper and the existing literature are reflected in the following aspects: First, [difference in identification strategy]; Second, [difference in data or sample]; Third, [difference in mechanism or heterogeneity]. Compared with the article XXX (Author, 202X) recently published in Economic Research Journal, this paper ...
Comparison with articles already published in this journalis a focus of reviewers for Economic Research Journal—if the literature review does not mention articles on the same topic published in this journal in the past 3 years, it will be regarded as "insufficient dialogue".
Anti-patterns
- Writing the literature review as a "textbook-style introduction of knowledge"
- The literature review is entirely centered on empirical work, with no theoretical literature
- Only one or two Chinese-language references are cited just to make up the numbers
- The literature review contains 5 parallel citations such as [27, 28, 29, 30, 31] — split them apart and discuss them separately according to their contributions
- More than 5 self-citations
Supporting materials and examples
For a complete example of a dialogic literature review, see resources/worked-examples/11-literature-review.md; for benchmarking against a real template, see resources/exemplars/。
Output format
【结构】三层 / 两层 / 一层
【中英配比】中文 X% / 英文 Y%
【理论文献占比】X%
【五年内文献比例】X%
【顶刊比例】X%
【缺漏清单】[...]
【下一步】er-identification