brycewang-stanford Topic Selection & Venue Fit (aeja-topic-selection)
When to trigger
- A project is empirically promising but you are unsure it is "AEJ: Applied-shaped"
- The question reads like a policy evaluation, a field-specialist note, or a top-general-interest swing — and you need to place it
- Several possible framings of the same dataset exist and you must pick the one that lands here
- Reviewers (or a co-author) say "this is fine but why this journal?"
The AEJ: Applied fit test
AEJ: Applied wants empirical applied microeconomics where a credible causal research design answers a substantive economic question of broad applied-micro interest — above a pure field journal but more specialized than AER. Use this decision table to place the project.
| Signal in your project | Likely fit |
|---|---|
| Clean identification + a question labor/dev/health/ed/public economists all care about | AEJ: Applied (core) |
| Same design but the contribution is mainly a policy verdict / program ROI framing | lean AEJ: Economic Policy |
| Genuinely general-interest, agenda-setting, methodologically ambitious, long | aim AER first |
| Contribution is field-internal (only sub-field specialists will cite it) | a field journal (JHE / JOLE / JDE) |
| New estimator with a toy application | Econometrica / REStud / JoE, not AEJ: Applied |
AEJ: Applied is empirical-first: theory appears to interpret and discipline the estimate, not to lead. A descriptive or measurement paper can fit if the question is sharp and the measurement is the contribution — but it must not overclaim causality.
Sharpening the question (do this before writing anything)
- One-sentence question with the causal object named: "What is the effect of X on Y for population P, identified by design D?"
- Why broad applied-micro readers care — name two subfields beyond your own that should cite it.
- What the headline number will be (a magnitude with units, even if approximate) — if you cannot imagine the sentence "we find X raises Y by ___," the question is not yet AEJ: Applied-shaped.
- The credible-design seed — which design (RCT / DID / RD / IV / shift-share) makes the estimate believable; if none, the topic is not ready (route to
aeja-identification).
Checklist
- One-sentence causal (or sharply descriptive) question with a named estimand
- Venue placed against the table above; reason it is AEJ: Applied and not AER / AEJ: Policy / a field journal written in one line
- Two subfields beyond your own that will cite it, named
- An imaginable headline sentence with a magnitude and units
- A candidate research design that could make the estimate credible
- JEL codes drafted (required at submission) reflecting the cross-field appeal
Anti-patterns
- A field-internal contribution dressed up as general — desk-reject risk for "fit"
- A pure policy-ROI framing that reads as AEJ: Economic Policy
- An ambitious agenda paper that is really an AER swing sent to AEJ: Applied as a hedge (or vice versa)
- "Interesting dataset, no question" — data-availability is not a contribution
- Implying causality from a design that cannot support it just to clear the bar
Worked vignette (illustrative)
A researcher has linked administrative tax and education records for one country and wants to "study inequality." That is a dataset, not a question. Working through the fit test: the cleanest variation in the data is a school-finance reform that changed per-pupil spending at a sharp formula threshold — an RD. The question becomes "what is the effect of marginal school spending on adult earnings, identified by the funding-formula discontinuity?" Two subfields beyond education (labor and public) will cite it; the imaginable headline is "a $1,000 increase in per-pupil spending raises adult earnings by ~___%." Now it is AEJ: Applied-shaped — and clearly not an AER agenda paper or an AEJ: Policy program verdict.
Sibling-placement quick test
- Would a non-specialist applied economist find the question interesting, not just the finding? → AEJ: Applied
- Is the deliverable a policy recommendation / cost-benefit verdict? → lean AEJ: Economic Policy
- Is the ambition field-defining and the design unusually novel? → try AER first
- Will only sub-field specialists ever cite it? → a field journal
Output format
【Question】one sentence, estimand + population named
【Venue verdict】AEJ: Applied because [not AER: ___] [not AEJ: Policy: ___] [not field: ___]
【Cross-field appeal】subfields that will cite: [..., ...]
【Headline (anticipated)】"X raises/lowers Y by ~___ (units)"
【Design seed】RCT / DID / RD / IV / shift-share / descriptive
【JEL draft】[codes]
【Next step】aeja-literature-positioning
Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → AEJ-Applied-Economics-Skills/skills/aeja-topic-selection/SKILL.md