Topic Selection & Fit (eer-topic-selection)

When to trigger

• You are unsure whether the paper is "EER-shaped" or belongs in a field outlet
• A reviewer/colleague said the question is "too narrow" or "of interest only to specialists"
• You are choosing among EER, JEEA, The Economic Journal, or an Elsevier field journal
• The contribution reads as an incremental field increment, not a broad-interest result

The EER fit bar

EER is Elsevier's general-interest European economics journal (founded 1969), publishing all fields, theory and empirical. The defining test is breadth of interest: would an economist outside your subfield find the question, the answer, or the method worth knowing? EER is not Europe-restricted in topic (the name is institutional), and it is not a methods-first journal — it wants a substantive economic result that travels. Calibrate against the desk-reject filter: editors screen out-of-scope or low-novelty work before review (and the submission fee is non-refundable), so the breadth case must be visible on page one.

Fit decision table

Signal	Reading	Move
Result changes how non-specialists think about a first-order question	Strong EER fit	proceed to eer-literature-positioning
Solid identification but narrow policy/sector relevance	Borderline — reframe for breadth or consider a field journal	reframe, then eer-literature-positioning
Incremental extension of one literature, specialists only	Weak EER fit	broaden the question or target a field outlet
Pure theory with a clean, general result	EER fits (theory is in scope)	eer-theory-model
About Europe but of only local interest	Topic ≠ scope problem	recast around the general economic mechanism

EER vs. its siblings (where does this paper go?)

Outlet	Identity	Pick it when
EER	Elsevier general-interest, all fields, long-standing	broad-interest result, theory or empirical, no society gate
JEEA	The EEA's own flagship (Oxford UP)	you want the EEA society flagship; comparably broad, more selective slot
The Economic Journal	RES flagship (Oxford UP)	RES-oriented general-interest home
Elsevier field journal (e.g., JME, Labour Economics, JPubE)	field-specialist depth	the contribution is deep but field-internal

EER and JEEA overlap heavily in scope; the practical difference is the EEA society identity of JEEA and slot scarcity, not topic. Position on contribution and fit, not prestige labels.

Reframing a narrow question for EER breadth

1. Name the general mechanism, not the local application ("how search frictions blunt pass-through," not "prices in one retail chain").
2. State the first-order quantity or theoretical object a generalist cares about.
3. Show portability — one sentence on what the result implies beyond your setting.
4. Lead with the answer, not the dataset or estimator.

Checklist

• One sentence states a question a non-specialist economist would care about
• The contribution is an answer/mechanism, not a dataset or a method tweak
• Breadth is visible in the first paragraph (survives the desk-reject screen)
• Sibling check done: EER vs. JEEA / EJ / field journal, decided on fit not prestige
• If theory, the result is general (not a single worked example)
• "European" framing, if any, is recast as a general economic mechanism

Anti-patterns

• Pitching a clean-but-narrow field increment as if breadth were obvious
• Leading with the data source or the estimator instead of the economic question
• Assuming EER means "European topics only" and over-localizing the framing
• Choosing EER purely on impact factor rather than fit and breadth
• Ignoring the desk-reject + non-refundable-fee filter when scope is marginal

Output format

【EER fit】strong / borderline / weak
【General-interest question】one sentence (non-specialist-legible)
【Contribution type】empirical answer / mechanism / theory result
【Breadth case】why a non-specialist cares + portability sentence
【Sibling decision】EER vs JEEA / EJ / field journal — and why
【Next step】eer-literature-positioning (or eer-theory-model if pure theory)