// Use when constructing or revising regression tables, descriptive statistics tables, or figures for an AER, AER:Insights, or AEJ manuscript. Implements AER booktabs house style, the standard regression-table layout, and the figure-notes convention.
Use when selecting, implementing, or stress-testing the causal identification strategy for an empirical economics manuscript — difference-in-differences (including staggered designs), instrumental variables (including weak-IV-robust inference), regression discontinuity, synthetic control, or shift-share / Bartik. Apply before writing the introduction or results.
Use when drafting or rewriting the introduction of an economics manuscript targeted at AER, AER:Insights, or an AEJ, or when compressing an abstract to the mandatory 100-word limit. Implements the Keith Head / Bellemare five-paragraph formula and AER-specific formatting conventions.
Use when responding to a Revise & Resubmit decision from AER, AER:Insights, or an AEJ, and a point-by-point response letter plus aligned manuscript revisions are needed. Handles triage, the concede / clarify / push-back decision, and the response-letter format that editors actually read.
Use when assembling the AEA Data and Code Availability deposit for an AER, AER:Insights, or AEJ acceptance, writing the README, or auditing a replication package before the AEA Data Editor review. Implements the current AEA policy, including the February 2026 Data and Code Availability Policy.
Use when the main empirical results exist but the manuscript lacks the robustness, heterogeneity, mechanism, and placebo checks that AER referees will demand. Apply after aer-identification and before aer-introduction so that the value-added paragraph can reference these tests.
Use when running the final pre-submission audit for an AER, AER:Insights, or AEJ manuscript — length, format, cover letter, per-author disclosure statements, file packaging, and routing among the AEA journal family. Apply immediately before clicking submit.
| name | aer-tables-figures |
| description | Use when constructing or revising regression tables, descriptive statistics tables, or figures for an AER, AER:Insights, or AEJ manuscript. Implements AER booktabs house style, the standard regression-table layout, and the figure-notes convention. |
Reviewers in economics read tables first. A misformatted, overstuffed, or note-bloated table signals carelessness and increases desk rejection probability independently of the result quality. This skill enforces AER house style and the "one claim per exhibit" discipline.
Hard AER conventions:
tablenotes / figurenotes environment.Every empirical AER paper has approximately:
If your paper needs more than ~7 main-text tables, the contribution is unfocused. Move secondary tables to the appendix.
Standard AER regression table:
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
OLS OLS OLS IV IV
Treatment 0.123*** 0.118*** 0.115*** 0.142*** 0.138***
(0.041) (0.040) (0.039) (0.052) (0.051)
Controls No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Unit FE No No Yes Yes Yes
Year FE No No Yes Yes Yes
Sample Full Full Full Full Balanced
Observations 12,453 12,453 12,453 12,453 11,892
R-squared 0.024 0.118 0.341 0.310 0.317
First-stage F 42.3 41.1
Notes: Standard errors in parentheses, clustered at the [unit] level. *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1.
AER convention: *** p<0.01, ** p<0.05, * p<0.1. Some authors and Angrist-Pischke prefer letter superscripts (a, b, c) to save space. Either is acceptable; the journal does not enforce a single convention. Do not mix.
estout / esttab — the canonical AER pipeline. esttab using table.tex, b(3) se(3) star(* 0.10 ** 0.05 *** 0.01) booktabs alignment(D{.}{.}{-1}) ...outreg2 — older, still commoncoefplot — for figure-based coefficient presentationfixest::etable — produces near-AER tables out of the box; supports \textsf{...} styling and booktabsmodelsummary — flexible, supports gt/kable/LaTeX backends; explicit options for AER conventionsstargazer — older; works but less customizablestargazer-py or pystata — for users mirroring Stata outputcoefplot (Stata) or ggplot2 + geom_pointrange (R).rdplot (Stata/R).\begin{figure}[t]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.8\textwidth]{fig_event_study.pdf}
\caption{Event-Study Estimates of the Effect of Policy on Outcome}
\label{fig:event}
\begin{figurenotes}
Notes: This figure plots Callaway-Sant'Anna ATT(g,t) estimates aggregated by event time.
The omitted period is $t = -1$. Bars show 95\% confidence intervals based on the
multiplier bootstrap. Sample restricted to [...]. N = [...].
\end{figurenotes}
\end{figure}
When working from the AER-skills repository or plugin bundle, load only the relevant table/figure scaffold:
templates/stata/06_tables.dotemplates/r/06_tables.Rtemplates/python/tables.pyMAIN TABLES: <count>
APPENDIX TABLES: <count>
FIGURES: <count>
STYLE COMPLIANT: <yes / list of remaining fixes>
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