--- name: review-of-economic-studies description: Use when targeting Review of Economic Studies (REStud) or deciding whether an economics manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, framing, method-and-evidence bar, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics. --- # Review of Economic Studies (review-of-economic-studies) ## Journal positioning REStud is one of the economics "top-5" (with AER, QJE, JPE, Econometrica), European-leaning and run by an active scholarly board. It is strong in theory and frontier methods and is known for publishing ambitious, technically serious work — historically a natural home for outstanding junior-scholar papers. The editorial culture prizes novelty and rigor across fields: a paper that does something genuinely new, whether a new model, a new method, or a striking new result, for a discipline-wide readership. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the REStud / Oxford University Press site and the editorial submission system. ## When to trigger - The author names REStud (or the top-5 with a novel theoretical/methodological angle) as the target venue. - An ambitious paper — often by a junior scholar — pushes a frontier in theory, methods, or design and the author is choosing among the top-5. - A technically serious paper needs re-framing so its novelty and rigor, not just its topic, lead the contribution. - The author needs REStud's desk-reject risks and a credible top-5 / top-field alternative list. ## Scope & topic fit - Frontier economic theory — micro theory, macro theory, dynamic models, mechanism and information economics — with general, novel results. - Frontier empirical and structural work that introduces or pushes new methods or identification. - Macro, labor, public, development, and IO papers when the contribution is methodologically or conceptually ambitious. - Cross-field work that combines theory and evidence in a novel way and reads as broadly important. ## Method & evidence bar - Novelty and rigor are the joint filter: the paper must do something new and do it correctly to a high formal standard. - Theory needs general, well-proved results; empirical and structural work needs credible, state-of-the-art identification and, where the method is the contribution, the supporting theory. - Ambition is rewarded but not at the expense of correctness — clean proofs, valid inference, and pre-empted threats are expected. - Data and code transparency follows current top-journal availability and verification norms; replication packages are expected for empirical work. ## Structure & house style - The introduction states the question, the novel contribution, the approach, and the result, and makes the case that the advance is new relative to the frontier. - Lead with what is new — model, method, or result — and let the rest of the paper establish it rigorously. - REStud uses an unstructured abstract and JEL codes; proofs, derivations, robustness, and secondary analyses move to appendices and online supplements. - Exhibits and propositions should be self-contained; the central new result should be legible on its own. ## Official-submission checklist - Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked. - Search the live site for "Review of Economic Studies submission guidelines" / "information for authors" and the data and code availability policy, and follow the current OUP / editorial versions. - Re-check the submission fee, formatting, abstract/JEL, anonymization, and figure/table standards on the submission system. - Re-check the current data/code deposit and replication-verification workflow — confirm it is enforced before acceptance. - If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win. ## Pre-submission self-check - [ ] One sentence stating what is genuinely new — the model, method, or result — relative to the frontier. - [ ] The contribution is stated as novelty + rigor (theory / method / identification), not as statistical significance. - [ ] The introduction positions the paper against the current top-5 / frontier work it advances. - [ ] Theory results are general and proven, or empirics use state-of-the-art identification; the novel claim is fully established. - [ ] Data and code are ready for the availability + verification workflow. ## Common desk-reject triggers - A competent paper with no genuine novelty — a standard application or incremental extension. - An ambitious idea executed without the formal rigor (incomplete proofs, weak identification) the venue demands. - "First to study X in context Y" framing without a new method, model, or conceptual advance. - Identification the profession no longer accepts (naive TWFE on staggered adoption, weak IV, cosmetic RDD). ## Re-routing decision - More technical / formal than topical → `econometrica` (theorem or new estimator with full proofs); general theory → `journal-of-economic-theory`. - General-interest empirical importance → `american-economic-review`, `quarterly-journal-of-economics`, or `journal-of-political-economy`. - Excellent but narrower applied micro → `aej-applied-economics` or `review-of-economics-and-statistics`; micro theory → `aej-microeconomics`. - Macro/growth/dynamics → `aej-macroeconomics`; one crisp single-result idea → `aer-insights`. ## Output format ```text [Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason) [Target] Review of Economic Studies [Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics> [Method/evidence] [Top risk] [Official items to re-check] [Re-route suggestion] ```