| 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.
AER accepts only a small share of submissions — on the order of 6–8% historically (Card and DellaVigna 2013, Nine Facts about Top Journals), and recent Reports of the Editor put the rate lower still. A large fraction of submissions are desk-rejected before ever reaching a referee; for AER: Insights, founding editor Amy Finkelstein has reported desk-rejecting "roughly 45%" of submissions. Either way, much of a paper's 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:
- 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.
- Substantive contribution. Methodological extension or substantive new fact or new identification or genuinely new data. Competent application of an existing toolkit is desk-rejected.
- Self-contained in the first 3 pages. The editor decides in ten minutes. If understanding the contribution requires the appendix, the paper fails.
- 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 (the search protocol and antecedents map live in
aer-literature — use it to answer them with evidence, not recall):
- Has someone in NBER, IZA, CEPR, or SSRN already done this? (Search before writing.)
- 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?
- Does the result change a policy debate, flip a stylized fact, or unify two strands of literature?
- Could a senior referee compress your contribution into "well, we already knew that"?
- 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:
- Internal brown-bag — 2 rounds, separated by ≥ 6 weeks
- ≥ 2 external seminars at peer or top-tier departments
- ≥ 1 NBER / CEPR / IZA conference presentation
- 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.
Repository Resources
When working from the AER-skills repository or plugin bundle, load only the
relevant resource:
- Recent AER/AEJ exemplars by subfield:
examples/modern-aer-exemplars.md
- Classic contribution archetypes:
examples/aer-exemplars.md
- Desk-rejection no-go audit:
docs/desk-rejection-audit.md
- Workflow routing after the topic decision:
docs/workflow-map.md
Go / No-Go Gate
Advance to aer-identification / aer-introduction only if all hold; otherwise route down (AEJ / field journal) or stop:
Handoff
When this skill finishes, emit:
CONTRIBUTION SENTENCE: <one line>
TARGET VENUE: <AER | AER:Insights | AEJ:Applied | AEJ:Policy | AEJ:Macro | AEJ:Micro>
TOP-5 BAR TESTS PASSED: <count>/4
KILL SWITCHES TRIGGERED: <list, or "none">
NEXT SKILL: <aer-literature | aer-identification>
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.
