wber-literature-positioning
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.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill wber-literature-positioning --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# 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. ## Positioning the contribution - **State the gap as a claim, not a
- When to trigger
- The WBER contribution standard
- Positioning the contribution
- Distinguishing WBER from its siblings
- Three contribution archetypes WBER rewards
- Referee pushback mapped to the positioning fix
- Checklist
- Citing the right development frontier
- Anti-patterns
- Worked vignette (illustrative)
- Output format
What does the wber-literature-positioning skill do?
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.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill wber-literature-positioning --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.