Literature Review

Conduct a structured literature search and synthesis on the given topic.

Input: $ARGUMENTS — a topic, paper title, research question, or phenomenon to investigate.

Steps

Parse the topic from $ARGUMENTS . If a specific paper is named, use it as the anchor.

Search for related work using available tools:

• Check master_supporting_docs/supporting_papers/ for uploaded papers

• Use WebSearch to find recent publications (if available)

• Use WebFetch to access working paper repositories (if available)

• Read any existing .bib file for papers already in the project

Organize findings into these categories:

• Theoretical contributions — models, frameworks, mechanisms

• Empirical findings — key results, effect sizes, data sources

• Methodological innovations — new estimators, identification strategies, inference methods

• Open debates — unresolved disagreements in the literature

Identify gaps and opportunities:

• What questions remain unanswered?

• What data or methods could address them?

• Where do findings conflict?

Extract citations in BibTeX format for all papers discussed.

Save the report to quality_reports/lit_review_[sanitized_topic].md

Output Format

Literature Review: [Topic]

Date: [YYYY-MM-DD] Query: [Original query from user]

Summary

[2-3 paragraph overview of the state of the literature]

Key Papers

[Author (Year)] — [Short Title]

• Main contribution: [1-2 sentences]
• Method: [Identification strategy / data]
• Key finding: [Result with effect size if available]
• Relevance: [Why it matters for our research]

[Repeat for 5-15 papers, ordered by relevance]

Thematic Organization

Theoretical Contributions

[Grouped discussion]

Empirical Findings

[Grouped discussion with comparison across studies]

Methodological Innovations

[Methods relevant to the topic]

Gaps and Opportunities

1. [Gap 1 — what's missing and why it matters]
2. [Gap 2]
3. [Gap 3]

Suggested Next Steps

• [Concrete actions: papers to read, data to obtain, methods to consider]

BibTeX Entries

@article{...}

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## Important

- **Be honest about uncertainty.** If you cannot verify a citation, say so.
- **Prioritize recent work** (last 5-10 years) unless seminal papers are older.
- **Note working papers vs published papers** — working papers may change.
- **Do NOT fabricate citations.** If you're unsure about a paper's details, flag it for the user to verify.