| name | aejmac-robustness |
| description | Use when the headline result of an American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics (AEJ: Macro) manuscript must be shown stable across specification, sample, identification, and tuning choices. Builds the robustness program a macro referee will demand; it does not establish the primary identification or model (use aejmac-identification / aejmac-theory-model first). |
Robustness Program (aejmac-robustness)
When to trigger
- The headline number rests on one specification, one sample, one lag length, or one grid
- A referee could ask "is this an artifact of [choice]?" and you have no panel of alternatives
- The empirical IRF and the model-implied response are compared but only at the baseline
- A structural/calibrated result has never been re-run under alternative targets
The AEJ: Macro robustness bar
Macro inference is fragile in characteristic ways: short effective samples, structural breaks (Great Moderation, ZLB, COVID), specification forks (lag length, detrending, prior, calibration target), and method dependence (SVAR vs. LP; perturbation vs. global). The AEJ: Macro robustness bar is to show the headline quantity survives the choices a skeptical macro referee would flip, and to be honest where it does not. Robustness is not a graveyard of extra tables — it is a targeted defense of the specific number the paper claims.
A macro robustness program (build the panel)
Empirical (SVAR / LP / narrative)
- Sample splits: pre/post-1984 (Great Moderation), exclude/keep the ZLB period, exclude COVID; report whether the response is stable.
- Specification: lag length, detrending/filtering choice (HP vs. one-sided vs. none), control set, levels vs. differences.
- Method cross-check: if SVAR is baseline, corroborate with LP (and vice versa); agreement is strong evidence.
- Inference: alternative HAC bandwidths / clustering; weak-instrument-robust bands for proxy-VAR/LP-IV.
- Identification variants: alternative orderings / sign sets / instrument constructions.
Quantitative (DSGE / HANK / structural)
- Alternative calibration targets and parameter ranges; show how the headline quantity moves.
- Alternative solution method / accuracy (higher perturbation order, finer grid) where nonlinearity matters.
- Alternative model elements (Taylor-rule coefficients, adjustment costs, market structure) the referee will name.
- Estimation: alternative moments / priors; re-estimate on a subsample.
Cross-cutting
- External validity: another country / dataset / period where the mechanism should also hold.
- Placebo / falsification: a response that should be zero (pre-shock leads; a non-targeted series).
Reporting discipline
- Lead with a one-paragraph summary of what is robust and what is not, then a compact robustness table/figure.
- Keep the baseline number visible in every robustness exhibit so the reader sees the movement.
- Put the bulk in the online appendix; main text carries the decisive checks only.
- A spec-curve / multiverse plot is powerful for empirical macro when many forks exist.
Execution bridge (StatsPAI / Stata MCP)
Run the battery, don't just enumerate it. Full map:
execution-with-mcp. AEJ: Macro mixes empirical and structural work — local projections (local_projections / irf) are in StatsPAI, but DSGE / calibration estimation is outside this causal-inference toolchain.
- Many outcomes / specifications:
romano_wolf (step-down FWER, accounts for
cross-test correlation) or benjamini_hochberg — report the adjusted threshold.
- OVB sensitivity:
oster_delta / sensemakr — the confounder strength that would
overturn the headline.
- Inference:
wild_cluster_bootstrap (few clusters), twoway_cluster / conley.
- Re-fit off one handle:
audit_result(result_id) lists the missing checks and the
exact suggest_function for each — no guessing the battery.
- Exhibits:
etable / did_summary_to_latex from the handle — no retyped numbers.
Keep the decisive checks in the body and the exhaustive (now actually-run) battery in
the appendix. See the executed chain in the JF execution walkthrough.
Checklist
Anti-patterns
- A wall of robustness tables that never restate the baseline, so movement is invisible
- Testing only the choices that confirm the result; omitting the obvious adversarial fork
- Ignoring the ZLB/COVID break in a sample that spans it
- Claiming robustness from one alternative specification
- Hiding a fragile headline behind a forest of irrelevant checks
- "Available upon request" instead of an online-appendix robustness section
Worked vignette: is the fiscal multiplier a Great-Moderation artifact? (illustrative)
A paper reports a fiscal multiplier of 1.2 from a proxy-VAR on 1960–2019. A referee suspects it is driven by the volatile pre-1984 period. The robustness program: re-estimate on 1984–2019, exclude the ZLB years, and corroborate with local projections using the same narrative instrument. Suppose the multiplier is 1.2 full sample, 1.0 post-1984, 1.4 at the ZLB, all with overlapping bands, and the LP cross-check agrees within 0.1 — the paper then claims a multiplier "around 1.0–1.4 depending on the monetary regime," which is more credible and more interesting than the single number (illustrative).
Output format
【Headline quantity defended】... (baseline value)
【Empirical robustness】sample splits / specs / method cross-check / inference variants
【Quantitative robustness】alt targets / parameters / solution accuracy
【Placebo + external validity】...
【Where it weakens (honest)】...
【Next step】aejmac-tables-figures
