Annual Review of Economics (annual-review-of-economics)

Journal positioning

Annual Review of Economics publishes authoritative, invited review articles that synthesize the state of an economics subfield for a broad professional audience. It is part of the Annual Reviews series; its value is a comprehensive, balanced, expert synthesis — not new empirical results or a new model. A great article gives a reader the intellectual map of a literature: the key questions, what is settled, what is contested, and where the field is heading. The readership is economists wanting an expert orientation outside their own specialty, plus graduate students.

This venue is solicited / invited. Articles are commissioned by the Editorial Committee, which plans each volume's topics and authors. Unsolicited full manuscripts are generally not the route in. The path is to be invited, or to suggest a topic/author to the editors for the Committee's consideration. Treat this skill as a fit check for a proposed review and a guide to the synthesis standard.

This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before proposing or writing, re-check the live author instructions and topic-suggestion process on the Annual Reviews site.

When to trigger

• The author has been invited (or hopes to be invited) to write an Annual Review of Economics article.
• A senior author wants to propose a review topic to the Editorial Committee and needs to gauge fit and framing.
• A manuscript is really a literature synthesis rather than an original-results paper and the author is considering review outlets.
• The author needs this venue's expectations and a credible alternative-review-venue list.

Scope & topic fit

• Comprehensive syntheses of active economics subfields and methods across micro, macro, and applied areas.
• State-of-the-field reviews that integrate theory, empirics, and open questions for non-specialists.
• Methodological surveys that orient readers to a tool or approach and its frontier.
• Topics with enough accumulated literature to synthesize — not a single new finding dressed as a review.

Method & evidence bar

• The contribution is balance and authority: fair coverage of competing approaches, not advocacy for the author's own work.
• Claims must rest on the existing literature, accurately represented; this is not the place to debut unpublished original results.
• The article should clarify what is known, what is disputed, and what is open, with an organizing framework.
• Comprehensiveness with judgment: cover the field, but curate and structure rather than list.

Structure & house style

• Annual Reviews articles follow the series' conventions: an abstract, structured sections, and often summary points / future-issues lists — re-check the current author kit.
• Lead with an organizing framework or set of questions; structure the literature, do not chronologically enumerate it.
• Write for the educated non-specialist economist; define field-specific jargon.
• Reference lists are extensive by design; follow the Annual Reviews reference and formatting style exactly.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked.
• Because the venue is invited, first confirm the commission or use the official topic-suggestion channel; search the live site for "Annual Review of Economics information for authors" and the Editorial Committee topic-proposal process.
• Re-check the current article-length target, abstract format, summary-points / future-issues requirements, figure policy, and the Annual Reviews reference style.
• Re-check disclosure-of-interest requirements and any data/figure-permission obligations for reproduced exhibits.
• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.

Pre-submission self-check

• One sentence stating which subfield this synthesizes and why a non-specialist economist needs the map now.
• The article is a balanced synthesis, not advocacy or a vehicle for unpublished results.
• An organizing framework structures the literature; settled vs. contested vs. open is explicit.
• Length, abstract, summary points, and reference style match the current Annual Reviews author kit.
• The topic was invited or routed through the official topic-suggestion process.

Common desk-reject triggers

• An unsolicited original-results paper submitted as if it were a review.
• A narrow self-citation-heavy survey that advocates one research program instead of mapping the field.
• A topic too thin or too broad to synthesize authoritatively.
• Ignoring the invited / commissioning workflow and Annual Reviews formatting.

Re-routing decision

• Invited economics surveys in adjacent series → journal-of-economic-perspectives or the Journal of Economic Literature for full surveys; methods-focused syntheses may suit those outlets too.
• If the work is actually new results, route to the matching original-research venue: general interest → american-economic-review; field-specific → the relevant field skill.
• Macro policy synthesis tied to a conference → brookings-papers-on-economic-activity; European policy synthesis → economic-policy.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Annual Review of Economics
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
[Method/evidence] <is this a balanced authoritative synthesis, not original results?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <invitation/topic-proposal route / length / summary points / reference style / disclosure>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>