thedixitjain JHR Workflow Router (jhr-workflow)
Overview
This is the router. It does not replace any specialized skill. It tells you which jhr- skill to use at the current stage* of a manuscript aimed at the Journal of Human Resources.
Default assumption: unless told otherwise, treat the target as JHR — a leading empirical-microeconomics journal founded in 1965, published by University of Wisconsin Press and housed at the UW-Madison Institute for Research on Poverty (IRP). It covers labor, development, health, education, discrimination, and retirement economics with a strong applied-micro, causal-identification, and public-policy orientation. Crucially, despite its name, JHR does NOT consider management or personnel ("HR management") research — and the nonrefundable submission fee is not returned for out-of-scope papers. The Editor is Anna Aizer (Brown) as of 2026-06-01; Michael Lovenheim (Cornell) becomes Editor on 2026-07-01 — re-verify on the live editorial-board page.
When to trigger
- The user asks "what should I do next?"
- A draft is handed over and the current bottleneck needs diagnosing
- Work is ping-ponging between empirics, writing, and the response letter
- A JHR decision letter (desk reject or R&R) just arrived
Routing table
| Current symptom | Next skill |
|---|---|
| Unsure the paper is even in scope (or it smells like "HR management") | jhr-topic-selection |
| Contribution relative to prior policy-relevant work is fuzzy | jhr-literature-positioning |
| Causal claim rests on OLS + controls | jhr-identification-strategy |
| Estimates exist but specs/sample/reconciliation are unsettled | jhr-data-analysis |
| The "why JHR / why now" framing is weak | jhr-contribution-framing |
| Tables are dense; exhibits not policy-legible | jhr-tables-figures |
| Prose buries the policy lesson | jhr-writing-style |
| Accepted-stage CC0 deposit, archive plan, DAS | jhr-replication-and-data-policy |
| Want to understand desk-reject / single-anonymous review | jhr-review-process |
| Ready to submit via msubmit.net; need a preflight | jhr-submission |
| Received an R&R; need a response-letter strategy | jhr-rebuttal |
Default order
jhr-topic-selection2.jhr-literature-positioning3.jhr-identification-strategy4.jhr-data-analysis5.jhr-contribution-framing6.jhr-tables-figures7.jhr-writing-style8.jhr-replication-and-data-policy9.jhr-review-process10.jhr-submission11.jhr-rebuttal
jhr-writing-styleis a late polish — do not rewrite the intro before identification and reconciliation are settled.
Diagnosis questions before routing
Ask these in order; the first "no" usually names the bottleneck skill:
- Is the question empirical microeconomics in a JHR field, with a policy
lever — and definitely not HR-management? (
jhr-topic-selection) - Can the draft name the closest prior estimate and why magnitudes differ?
(
jhr-literature-positioning) - Does a referee-grade design exist: rollout timing, cutoff, lottery, or
instrument, with the matching diagnostics planned? (
jhr-identification-strategy) - Are estimates produced with venue-default estimators, assignment-level
clustering, and a reconciliation table? (
jhr-data-analysis) - Are the archive footnote, disclosure statements, and 40-page budget ready?
(
jhr-replication-and-data-policy, thenjhr-submission)
Decision-letter triage
- Desk release (no referees): diagnose scope vs. framing — re-run
jhr-topic-selection; if scope was fine, the desk screen failed on legibility, so route tojhr-contribution-framingbefore any new venue. - R&R: go straight to
jhr-rebuttal, but expect loops back intojhr-data-analysisfor comparative estimation and intojhr-tables-figuresfor new diagnostics. - Reject after review: harvest the reports; they may be attachable at the next venue, and JHR's review-recycling logic works in reverse too.
Worked routing pass
Incoming draft: staggered state paid-leave rollout, TWFE only, no event study, no archive plan, intro leads with three pages of literature. Routing emitted:
【Stage】pre-submission, empirics unsettled
【Bottleneck】TWFE with staggered adoption; pre-trends never shown
【Route】jhr-identification-strategy -> jhr-data-analysis (robust estimator,
event study, reconciliation table)
【Then】jhr-contribution-framing (move design + magnitude to page 1)
【Parallel】jhr-replication-and-data-policy (archive footnote before preflight)
【Hold】jhr-writing-style until estimates stabilize
Emit this block whenever the user asks "what next" — one stage, one bottleneck, one ordered route, holds made explicit.
Cross-skill invariants
Whatever route is taken, three artifacts must exist before jhr-submission
runs: the reconciliation table, the design-diagnostic exhibit (event study,
first stage, or density test), and the archive-plan footnote. If a routing pass
ends without all three on the board, schedule the owning skill explicitly.
Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills → Journal-of-Human-Resources-Skills/skills/jhr-workflow/SKILL.md