brycewang-stanford EER Workflow Router (eer-workflow)
Overview
This is the router. It tells you which eer- skill to use at the current stage* of a manuscript aimed at the European Economic Review (EER) — Elsevier's long-standing (founded 1969) general-interest European economics journal, hosted on ScienceDirect (ISSN 0014-2921). EER publishes all fields of economics, theory and empirical — macro, micro, labor, public, IO, international, finance, behavioral — and rewards papers of broad interest with a credible identification or theoretical contribution, not narrow field-specialist increments.
Default assumption: unless the user says otherwise, treat the target as EER. Operational tells that you are at EER and not a sibling or a field journal: submission is via Editorial Manager (editorialmanager.com/eerev); review is single-anonymized (single-blind — referees see author identities) (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准); there is a non-refundable submission fee (EUR 125 regular / EUR 100 PhD-student; Research4Life Group A waiver) (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准); accepted empirical/simulation/experimental papers must meet the mandatory replication policy (data, code, computational details before publication); house style is Elsevier-economics (structured abstract, JEL codes, keywords, research highlights, declaration of interest, standard errors reported). The "European" in the title is institutional history, not a scope restriction — topics need not be about Europe. Editors as of 2026 include Evi Pappa, David K. Levine, Stefania Garetto, Peter Rupert, Robert Sauer (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准). Re-verify volatile specifics on the official Elsevier/ScienceDirect pages.
When to trigger
- The user asks "what should I do next?"
- A draft needs its current bottleneck diagnosed
- Work is ping-ponging between identification, theory, writing, and the response letter
- An EER decision letter arrived and the user needs to switch into revision mode
Routing table
| Current symptom | Next skill |
|---|---|
| Question feels narrow / field-specialist, not general-interest | eer-topic-selection |
| Contribution vs. the literature is fuzzy or oversold | eer-literature-positioning |
| Empirical causal design is shaky (OLS+controls, naive TWFE, weak IV) | eer-identification |
| A theory/model is needed or the existing one is loose | eer-theory-model |
| Results may not survive specification / sample / inference changes | eer-robustness |
| Exhibits are dense; significance asterisks dominate; no SEs | eer-tables-figures |
| Prose buries the idea; abstract/intro/highlights do not land | eer-writing-style |
| Data/code deposit, README, replication-policy prep | eer-replication-package |
| Want to anticipate referee objections before submitting | eer-referee-strategy |
| Ready to submit via Editorial Manager; need a preflight | eer-submission |
| Received an R&R; need a response-letter strategy | eer-rebuttal |
Default order
eer-topic-selection— confirm the question is general-interest, not field-nicheeer-literature-positioning— stake the contribution vs. the frontier (incl. vs. JEEA/EJ)eer-identification— make the empirical causal design credibleeer-theory-model— build/tighten the model or conceptual frameeer-robustness— stress-test estimates to specs, samples, inferenceeer-tables-figures— exhibits with SEs, no significance-star worshipeer-writing-style— make the idea land (abstract + intro + highlights last)eer-replication-package— assemble the mandatory-replication-policy depositeer-referee-strategy— pre-empt the objections a single-blind referee will raiseeer-submission— Editorial Manager preflight (fee, format, declarations)eer-rebuttal— after the R&R
eer-writing-styleis a late-stage polish; do not rewrite the intro before identification/theory settle. For a pure-theory paper,eer-theory-modelprecedeseer-identification(or replaces it).
Anti-patterns
- Treating EER as a Europe-only or field journal — the bar is general interest across all of economics
- Polishing exhibits (
eer-tables-figures) while the identification is still moving - Deferring
eer-replication-packageuntil acceptance — assemble the deposit as you build results - Forgetting the non-refundable submission fee and submitting an out-of-scope paper that desk-rejects
- Confusing EER with JEEA (the EEA's own flagship) or The Economic Journal (RES flagship)
Routing by paper archetype
EER spans theory and many empirical fields; the bottleneck differs by archetype. Read the row, then enter the chain at the right link.
| Archetype | Likely first bottleneck | Enter at |
|---|---|---|
| applied micro / labor / public causal design | staggered-DID or weak-IV credibility | eer-identification |
| macro / quantitative model | model discipline + mapping to data | eer-theory-model → eer-robustness |
| pure theory / micro-theory | sharpness + generality of the result | eer-theory-model |
| experiment / behavioral | pre-registration, balance, MHT, instructions | eer-identification → eer-replication-package |
Worked routing example (illustrative)
A user says: "My labor paper uses event-study DID on a staggered minimum-wage rollout, but a referee says the parallel-trends story is thin and the result might be driven by one state." Two distinct EER pushbacks — design credibility (heterogeneity-robust DID, clean pre-trends) owned by eer-identification, and fragility (leave-one-state-out, alternative samples) owned by eer-robustness. Route to eer-identification first; once the event-study leads are flat and the modern estimator agrees (say the effect settles at -2.1% employment, s.e. 0.8, illustrative), move to eer-robustness, then eer-tables-figures and eer-rebuttal.
Minimal decision snippet
if decision_letter_arrived: -> eer-rebuttal
elif ready_to_submit: -> eer-submission
elif anticipating_referees: -> eer-referee-strategy
elif deposit_or_replication: -> eer-replication-package
elif exhibits_or_significance: -> eer-tables-figures
elif results_may_be_fragile: -> eer-robustness
elif needs_model: -> eer-theory-model
elif identification_shaky: -> eer-identification
elif claim_or_positioning_fuzzy: -> eer-literature-positioning
else: -> eer-topic-selection