--- name: aer-topic-selection description: Use when evaluating whether a research idea clears the AER top-5 bar, when routing between AER, AER:Insights, and the AEJ family, or when sharpening a fuzzy contribution sentence into one publishable claim. Apply before any writing begins. --- # AER Topic Selection ## Overview The single most expensive mistake in top-5 economics is writing a polished manuscript around a contribution that was always going to be desk-rejected. This skill is the **pre-mortem**: stress-test the idea, the audience, and the venue *before* the introduction is drafted. The AER acceptance rate is **6–8%** of submitted papers and the desk rejection rate at the AER family runs **45–62%** depending on the journal. Roughly half of the survival probability is determined before the first paragraph is written. ## When to Use - A new project just started and the contribution sentence cannot be written in one line - The user is undecided between submitting to AER, AER: Insights, or an AEJ - A prior submission was desk-rejected and the user wants to diagnose whether the topic itself was the problem - The paper "feels solid" but no senior colleague has agreed to send it to AER ## The Top-5 Bar A paper clears the top-5 bar if and only if **all four** are true: 1. **Cross-subfield interest.** A labor economist's paper must matter to public, macro, IO, and development economists. Not the median person — the editor. If you cannot name three subfields that would cite it, it is an AEJ paper. 2. **Substantive contribution.** Methodological extension *or* substantive new fact *or* new identification *or* genuinely new data. Competent application of an existing toolkit is desk-rejected. 3. **Self-contained in the first 3 pages.** The editor decides in ten minutes. If understanding the contribution requires the appendix, the paper fails. 4. **Defensible identification or model discipline.** Empirical: design-based, not selection-on-observables. Theory: tractable result with an empirical or policy hook. If any single test fails, the realistic target is an AEJ or a top field journal, not AER. ## Venue Routing | Signal | Target | |-------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------| | Cross-subfield interest + ≥ 40 pages of substance | **AER** | | One sharp result, fits the AER: Insights word/exhibit formula, can be told without a long lit review | **AER: Insights** | | Strong but subfield-bounded contribution; methodologically sound | **AEJ: Applied / Policy / Macro / Micro** | | Conventional method, modest extension, useful for one literature | Top field journal | | Field experiment with policy hook | AER, AEJ:Applied, or QJE — register in **AEA RCT Registry** *before* submission | For AER: Insights specifically, the editor (Amy Finkelstein) has stated that a great short paper "makes one point and makes it clearly, concisely, and effectively." If you have a second point, write a second paper. ## The Contribution Sentence Test Force the contribution into one sentence with this template: ``` We show that X causes Y, identified by Z, using data D, with magnitude M, which changes the way economists think about Q. ``` If any blank cannot be filled in: - **X / Y unclear** → the research question is not yet a question - **Z weak** → return to `aer-identification` before doing anything else - **D thin** → small-sample, unreplicable, or off-the-shelf data is desk-reject bait - **M unknown** → results don't exist yet; this is not a topic-selection problem - **Q absent** → this is an AEJ paper, not an AER paper ## Novelty Audit Run these five questions: 1. Has someone in NBER, IZA, CEPR, or SSRN already done this? (Search before writing.) 2. Is the closest published paper in a top-5 within the last 5 years? If yes, what does yours add — new method, new setting, new mechanism, opposite sign? 3. Does the result *change a policy debate*, *flip a stylized fact*, or *unify two strands of literature*? 4. Could a senior referee compress your contribution into "well, we already knew that"? 5. Could a senior referee compress your contribution into "interesting but it's not economics"? A "yes" to (4) or (5) is fatal at AER. ## Desk Rejection Red Flags The editor scans for these in the first ten minutes: - Correlational language masquerading as causal ("our results suggest a relationship between ...") - An introduction that runs more than 3 pages without naming the data or the identification strategy - A 14-column table 1 with no headline takeaway - Spelling, formatting, or LaTeX-bibliography errors visible on the first page - Abstract over 100 words - Excessive reliance on the online appendix ("see appendix B for the main result") - Methodology mismatch — claims causal identification but reports OLS with controls If any of these are present, fix them before submission. ## Pre-Submission Seminar Sequence Peer feedback measurably improves journal placement: one SD more comments → 47% higher journal quality. Before sending to AER, target: 1. Internal brown-bag — 2 rounds, separated by ≥ 6 weeks 2. ≥ 2 external seminars at peer or top-tier departments 3. ≥ 1 NBER / CEPR / IZA conference presentation 4. Working paper posted ≥ 3 months before submission Skip none of these for an AER target. AER: Insights tolerates a shorter cycle because the contribution is sharper and the venue is younger. ## Handoff When this skill finishes, emit: ```text CONTRIBUTION SENTENCE: TARGET VENUE: TOP-5 BAR TESTS PASSED: /4 KILL SWITCHES TRIGGERED: NEXT SKILL: ``` ## Anti-Patterns - Choosing the venue based on prestige rather than fit. An AEJ acceptance beats two AER rejections. - Letting the contribution sentence include "and we also explore ..." — that *and* is where the paper dies. - Submitting to AER because "the bar is the same as AEJ anyway." It is not. Cross-subfield interest is the explicit filter.