Empirical Research Methods

Empirical Research Methods

This skill adapts the workflow ideas from Awesome Agent Skills for Empirical Research into MedrixFlow. It is a routing and integrity layer, not a vendored copy of the whole upstream repository.

Use This Skill For

• empirical papers in economics, policy, education, finance, management, sociology, psychology, epidemiology, public health, or related social-science fields
• causal inference or econometric analysis: DID, staggered DID, IV, RDD, PSM/IPW, entropy balancing, synthetic control, DML, causal forest, target-trial emulation, TMLE, survival, mediation, heterogeneity, mechanisms
• requests such as "run a full empirical analysis", "make Table 1", "event study", "parallel trends", "robustness checks", "replication package", "AER/QJE style table", or "Quarto/Stata/R/Python empirical workflow"
• automatic research quests whose experiment stage depends on a real dataset and a defensible identification strategy

Core Principle

Treat empirical work as a staged design argument, not a single model fit. The agent must first establish the data contract and estimand, then run diagnostics, then estimate, then stress-test, then package results for review.

MedrixFlow Routing

• Use research_assistant when the user wants a staged automatic research project, manuscript lifecycle, human gates, reviewer loop, or final bundle.
• Use academic_research only for related work, identification precedent, measurement precedent, and citation grounding.
• Use experiment_lab for execution on local data. Pass method information in analysis_type and metadata, including the chosen empirical method, estimand, identifiers, time variables, treatment variables, covariates, fixed effects, cluster level, and robustness plan.
• Use manuscript_export only after empirical claims have corresponding result artifacts and citation evidence.

Workflow Contract

1. Intake And Data Contract

Before estimation, identify:

• outcome variable
• treatment or exposure variable
• unit identifier and time variable for panel/event-study designs
• treatment timing for DID/staggered DID
• running variable and cutoff for RDD
• instrument for IV
• matching/IPW covariates for PSM/IPW
• cluster level and fixed effects
• sample restrictions and missing-data policy
• primary estimand: ATE, ATT, LATE, CATE, event-time effect, risk difference, hazard ratio, or predictive metric

If these are missing and cannot be inferred from uploaded data, ask for them or create a blocked research quest entry. Do not silently choose a causal design.

2. Method Selection

Use this decision table:

3. Mandatory Empirical Outputs

For a full empirical analysis, produce an artifact bundle with:

• experiment_plan.md: research question, estimand, identification assumptions, variables, sample restrictions, budget, and human approvals
• methods.md: data cleaning, model equations, fixed effects, standard errors, diagnostics, and limitations
• results.md: main findings with cautious interpretation
• metrics.json: structured estimates, standard errors, p-values, fit metrics, diagnostics, and robustness status where available
• figure_manifest.json
• tables: Table 1 / balance, main results, robustness, heterogeneity, and mechanisms when applicable
• figures: trend/event-study/RD/balance/coef/spec-curve plots when applicable
• reproducibility_ledger.json or equivalent metadata recording dataset paths, seeds, package fallbacks, and skipped checks

4. Identification Gates

Block or downgrade causal language when:

• treatment assignment is not plausibly exogenous and no design handles it
• DID lacks a credible pre-trend or event-study check when pre-period data exists
• IV has weak first-stage evidence
• RDD lacks density/covariate-balance diagnostics
• PSM/IPW lacks post-adjustment balance diagnostics
• DML/CATE work lacks cross-fitting or honest sample splitting where relevant
• the dataset has no declared outcome/treatment for causal claims

When blocked, preserve the exploratory outputs and state what design input is missing. Do not turn correlation into causation.

Experiment Lab Metadata Pattern

When calling experiment_lab, include metadata like:

{
  "skill": "empirical-research-methods",
  "empirical_method": "did",
  "estimand": "ATT",
  "outcome": "y",
  "treatment": "treated",
  "unit_id": "unit_id",
  "time": "year",
  "treatment_time": "first_treat_year",
  "covariates": ["x1", "x2"],
  "fixed_effects": ["unit_id", "year"],
  "cluster": "unit_id",
  "required_outputs": ["table1", "main_results", "event_study", "robustness"]
}

Use analysis_type values such as did, staggered_did, iv, rdd, psm, synthetic_control, dml, causal_forest, target_trial, tmle, survival, regression, or classification. If the current backend does not implement the requested estimator, run the closest safe descriptive or regression workflow, mark the requested method as not executed, and keep the quest blocked before causal manuscript claims.

Writing Rules

• Separate literature evidence from empirical evidence.
• Cite method precedent through academic_research; cite actual estimates only from generated artifacts.
• Use cautious language: "associated with" for non-causal designs; "estimated effect" only when the identification gate passes.
• For paper outputs, feed the empirical result artifacts and claim map into manuscript_export; do not write unsupported causal claims.

Source Basis

This skill takes the useful structure from the upstream Awesome Agent Skills for Empirical Research project: StatsPAI-style agent-native causal workflows, classical Python/R/Stata 8-step empirical pipelines, method-specific checks (DID/IV/RDD/PSM/SCM/DML), and reproducibility packaging. It intentionally avoids blindly importing huge third-party skill bundles or assuming proprietary tools are installed.