jleo-workflow

JLEO Workflow Router (jleo-workflow)

Overview

This is the router. It tells you **which jleo- skill to use at the current stage* of a manuscript aimed at The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization (JLEO) — the Oxford University Press journal founded in 1985 by Oliver E. Williamson and Jerry L. Mashaw at Yale, and the flagship outlet of the law-economics-organization tradition: transaction-cost economics, the theory of the firm, contracts and governance, and positive political economy (courts, legislatures, bureaucracies, federalism as institutions in the North–Weingast–Williamson line). It publishes both formal-theoretical and empirical work, triannually; Andrea Prat is Editor-in-Chief (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准).

Default assumption: unless the user says otherwise, treat the target as JLEO. Operational tells that you are at JLEO and not a sibling: the paper's payoff is an institutional or organizational claim, not a price-theory or pure-doctrine one; the question is "how does this governance structure / institution / political mechanism work and why does it take the form it does," and the contribution speaks to the new-institutional / PPE community. Submission is via the Editorial Express portal (editorialexpress.com/jleo); OUP is the publisher; the journal is COPE-compliant. Re-verify volatile specifics (editor, fees, exact limits, blinding) on the official OUP pages.

When to trigger

• The user asks "what should I do next?" on a JLEO-bound manuscript
• A draft needs its current bottleneck diagnosed against the law-economics-organization bar
• Work is ping-ponging between framing, theory/model, identification, exhibits, and the response letter
• A JLEO decision letter arrived and the user needs to switch into revision mode
• The team is unsure whether the paper belongs at JLEO versus JLE, JLS, ALER, QJPS, or Organization Science

Routing table

| Current symptom | Next skill |

|-----------------|------------|

| Scope/fit uncertain; might be price-theory L&E or pure org-theory | jleo-topic-selection |

| Contribution vs. the institutional/PPE frontier is fuzzy or undersold | jleo-literature-positioning |

| Causal credibility (reform, court/committee assignment, institutional variation) is shaky | jleo-identification |

| The institutional/organizational model or mechanism is loose or decorative | jleo-theory-model |

| Results may be specification-, sample-, or inference-sensitive | jleo-robustness |

| Exhibits are dense or do not answer the institutional question | jleo-tables-figures |

| Prose buries the institutional logic; intro/abstract do not land | jleo-writing-style |

| Data, code, or institutional-source documentation needs packaging | jleo-replication-package |

| Likely referee objections should be anticipated before submitting | jleo-referee-strategy |

| Ready to submit via Editorial Express; need a preflight | jleo-submission |

| A decision letter or referee report needs a response plan | jleo-rebuttal |

Default order

1. jleo-topic-selection — lock a law-economics-organization question, not a sibling's
2. jleo-literature-positioning — stake the contribution vs. the institutional/PPE frontier
3. jleo-identification — institutional/organizational causal design where the paper is empirical
4. jleo-theory-model — the transaction-cost / agency / political-agency model that gives the claim teeth
5. jleo-robustness — threat-organized checks, not a mechanical appendix
6. jleo-tables-figures — exhibits that show the institutional comparison cleanly
7. jleo-writing-style — make the institutional logic land (intro + abstract last)
8. jleo-replication-package — institutional/organizational/political data paths and code
9. jleo-referee-strategy — anticipate the institutional-economist referee
10. jleo-submission — Editorial Express preflight
11. jleo-rebuttal — after the decision letter

> jleo-writing-style is a late-stage polish; do not rewrite the intro before the model and identification settle. Theory and empirics co-evolve at JLEO — jleo-theory-model and jleo-identification often loop.

Routing by paper archetype

JLEO accepts several shapes, and the binding constraint differs by shape. Read the archetype, then enter the chain at the right link.

| Archetype | Likely first bottleneck | Enter at |

|-----------|-------------------------|----------|

| positive political economy model (legislature/court/bureaucracy) | comparative statics + an empirical or institutional test | jleo-theory-model → jleo-identification |

| transaction-cost / make-or-buy / governance-choice empirics | selection into governance form; endogenous boundaries | jleo-identification |

| contracts & theory of the firm (formal) | a sharp, novel mechanism vs. the canon | jleo-theory-model |

| institutions & reform (causal) | reform/assignment as a credible design, not OLS+controls | jleo-identification |

| organizational governance / personnel inside firms | mechanism + measurement of the organizational object | jleo-topic-selection → jleo-theory-model |

Sibling boundaries (why JLEO and not its neighbors)

• vs. Journal of Law and Economics (JLE, Chicago): JLE is price-theory law-and-economics — antitrust, regulation, crime, empirical effects of legal rules on markets. JLEO adds organization: governance structures, the firm, and the political institutions that make and enforce rules. If the payoff is a market effect of a rule, lean JLE; if it is why the institution/organization takes this form, lean JLEO.
• vs. Journal of Legal Studies (JLS): JLS is broader law-and-economics with more doctrinal/legal-theory range; JLEO is tighter on institutions, organization, and PPE.
• vs. Quarterly Journal of Political Science (QJPS) / American Political Science Review: those are political-science homes for PPE; JLEO welcomes PPE but frames it as institutional economics with formal or empirical economics standards.
• vs. American Law and Economics Review (ALER): ALER is the AALEA's broad L&E outlet; JLEO is more organization- and governance-centric.
• vs. Organization Science: Org Science is management/org-theory (behavioral, sociological); JLEO is economics of organization (transaction costs, agency, formal incentives).

Anti-patterns

• Treating JLEO as interchangeable with JLE (price-theory) or Organization Science (org-theory)
• Submitting a pure reduced-form market study with no institutional/organizational object as the payoff
• Polishing prose before the model and identification are stable
• Letting an appendix carry the institutional claim the main text must establish
• Quoting volatile process facts (editor, fee, blinding) as permanent instead of marking 待核实

Output format

【Target】The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization (JLEO)
【Archetype】PPE model / TCE governance empirics / contracts-theory / institutions-causal / org-governance
【Current bottleneck】fit / contribution / identification / model / robustness / exhibits / style / submission / revision
【Next skill】<one jleo-* skill>
【Reason】why this is the binding constraint for an institutional/organizational claim
【Source check】official facts verified or marked 待核实