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name: rje-topic-selection description: Use to test whether a research question fits The RAND Journal of Economics (RJE) — the flagship industrial-organization journal with a deliberately narrow applied-microeconomics scope (regulated industries, antitrust/competition, market structure, firm strategy, the economics of organizations). Screens fit before you invest in a full draft.

Topic Selection & Fit (rje-topic-selection)

When to trigger

• Deciding whether RJE is the right home for an applied-micro project
• A project drifting toward general theory or macro and you need a scope check
• Sharpening a vague firm/market question into an IO-flagship-worthy one

The RJE scope (verified 2026-06-01)

RJE exists, per its own statement of purpose, "to support and encourage research in the behavior of regulated industries, the economic analysis of organizations, and more generally, applied microeconomics" (rje.org). Formerly the Bell Journal of Economics and sponsored by the RAND Corporation, it is widely regarded as the field's flagship industrial-organization journal. The scope is deliberately narrow — it is not a general-interest, methods, or macro outlet. Both theoretical and empirical IO work is welcomed.

On-scope topics (strong fit)

• Competition / antitrust: market power, mergers, collusion, exclusion, vertical relationships.
• Regulated industries: electricity, telecom, transportation, health insurance, networks, and the design/effects of regulation.
• Market structure & firm strategy: entry/exit, pricing, product differentiation, advertising, platforms, two-sided markets.
• Economic analysis of organizations: contracts, incentives inside firms, vertical integration, the boundaries of the firm.
• Auctions and mechanism design with a market/competition application; related law-and-economics.

Off-scope (route elsewhere)

• General economic theory or macro with no IO/market mechanism — wrong journal.
• Labor/public/development questions with no industrial-organization core (those fit general-interest or field journals, not the IO flagship).
• Pure methodology with no substantive market question.

The RJE bar

A strong RJE topic poses a first-order question about how a market or firm works, answers it with a structural model or a credible reduced-form design, and delivers a competition, regulation, or welfare lesson. Because the journal's identity is IO, a sharp market mechanism beats a broad-but-vague theme. The hard page caps (40/50 pp) also reward focused questions over sprawling ones.

Fit-screening grid (does the question belong at the IO flagship?)

Run the candidate question through the grid before committing months to a draft. A strong RJE topic clears every column.

Question trait	Strong fit	Borderline	Route elsewhere
Core mechanism	Competition, regulation, firm strategy, organizations	Market-adjacent but mechanism unclear	No market/firm mechanism
Object identified	Demand/cost primitive, conduct, entry, welfare	A reduced-form effect with IO stake	A correlation with no IO stake
Policy payoff	Antitrust/regulation/welfare lesson	Lesson present but thin	None
Scope	One sharp question inside 40 pp	Two-question agenda	Sprawling, multi-topic
Method available	Structural model or credible design	Design exists but contested	No credible design

Worked vignette: rescuing a borderline question

Suppose the initial idea is "do online reviews affect restaurant revenue?" — interesting, but as stated it is a general applied-micro correlation, borderline-to-off-scope for the IO flagship. Sharpen it toward an IO mechanism:

• Add a market-power angle: reframe as "do platform-displayed reviews soften or intensify price competition among nearby restaurants?" — now the object is competitive conduct, squarely IO.
• Name a structural object: the question becomes whether review salience shifts demand elasticities and thus equilibrium markups.
• State the policy payoff: implications for platform design and for whether rating systems are pro- or anti-competitive — relevant to competition authorities.
• Scope it: one market (one city's restaurants over one platform redesign), one mechanism, comfortably inside the page cap.

The rescued version poses a first-order question about how a market works and delivers a competition lesson; the original did neither.

Calibration anchors (what an on-scope RJE article looks like)

• A single market or closely related set of markets, not a cross-country panel of everything.
• A structural model or a clean design built around an identified competition/regulation mechanism.
• A welfare or policy verdict that an antitrust authority or regulator could act on.
• These are general patterns, not quotas — confirm current emphases against recent issues and the journal's statement of purpose.

Anti-patterns

• Pitching a general-micro or macro paper as "applied microeconomics" with no market mechanism
• A reduced-form correlation with no competition/regulation/organization stake
• A project too broad to argue inside the 40-page main-text cap

Output format

【Question】one sentence (the market/firm mechanism)
【RJE bucket】antitrust / regulation / market structure / organizations / auctions
【On-scope?】strong / borderline / off-scope (route elsewhere)
【Welfare/policy lesson】one line
【Next step】rje-contribution-framing