/aejpol-workflow

name: aejpol-workflow
description: Use when deciding which aejpol-* sub-skill to invoke next, or when sequencing manuscript work from topic selection through rebuttal for an AEJ: Economic Policy manuscript. Routes — it does not replace — the specialized skills.

AEJ: Policy Workflow Router (aejpol-workflow)

Overview

This is the router. It tells you **which aejpol-* skill to use at the current stage** of a manuscript aimed at the *American Economic Journal: Economic Policy* (AEJ: Policy) — the **American Economic Association's** quarterly journal for the **economic analysis OF policy**. AEJ: Policy rewards a paper built around a **clear policy question** whose answer carries a **welfare, cost-benefit, or distributional implication**, identified credibly (quasi-experimental / RCT / applied theory) and reproducible to AEA standards. The policy question and its counterfactual are the through-line of every skill below.

Default assumption: unless the user says otherwise, treat the target as AEJ: Policy. Operational tells that you are at AEJ: Policy and not a sibling: review is **single-blind** through the **AEA submission system** (the manuscript carries the title/byline/affiliations); **JEL codes** are required; the **AEA Data and Code Availability Policy** and the **AEA Data Editor** run a **pre-publication** reproducibility check on a deposit in the **AEA Data and Code Repository (openICPSR)**; the bar is **broad policy interest + credible causal evidence + a welfare/cost-benefit reading**, not a field-public-finance bar (J. Public Economics) or an identification-for-its-own-sake bar (AEJ: Applied). Re-verify volatile specifics (submission fee, editors) on the official AEA pages — official AEA pages checked 2026-06-20.

When to trigger

• The user asks "what should I do next?"
• A draft needs its current bottleneck diagnosed
• Work is ping-ponging between identification, the policy framing, exhibits, and the response letter
• An AEJ: Policy decision letter arrived and the user needs to switch into revision mode

Routing table

| Current symptom | Next skill | |-----------------|------------| | No sharp policy question, or fit vs. JPubE / AEJ:Applied / AER unclear | `aejpol-topic-selection` | | Contribution vs. the policy-evaluation literature is fuzzy or undersold | `aejpol-literature-positioning` | | Causal design (DID / IV / RDD / RCT) for the policy's effect is shaky | `aejpol-identification` | | Need a model/welfare framework to read estimates as a policy effect | `aejpol-theory-model` | | Estimate stability, sensitivity, and threats need stress-testing | `aejpol-robustness` | | Exhibits are dense; significance asterisks still present | `aejpol-tables-figures` | | Prose buries the policy takeaway; abstract/intro do not land | `aejpol-writing-style` | | Data/code deposit, README, AEA Data Editor prep, restricted-data path | `aejpol-replication-package` | | Want to anticipate the referees' objections before submitting | `aejpol-referee-strategy` | | Ready to submit via the AEA system; need a preflight | `aejpol-submission` | | Received an R&R; need a response-letter strategy | `aejpol-rebuttal` |

Default order

1. `aejpol-topic-selection` — lock the policy question + the welfare/cost-benefit stake 2. `aejpol-literature-positioning` — stake the contribution vs. the policy-evaluation frontier 3. `aejpol-identification` — credible quasi-experimental / RCT evaluation of the policy 4. `aejpol-theory-model` — the framework that maps estimates to a welfare/policy object 5. `aejpol-robustness` — sensitivity, threats, specification stability 6. `aejpol-tables-figures` — exhibits without significance asterisks; a policy-relevant headline exhibit 7. `aejpol-writing-style` — translate estimates into a clear policy takeaway (abstract + intro last) 8. `aejpol-replication-package` — assemble the AEA-compliant deposit 9. `aejpol-referee-strategy` — pre-empt the objections referees will raise 10. `aejpol-submission` — AEA system preflight 11. `aejpol-rebuttal` — after the R&R

> `aejpol-writing-style` is a late-stage polish; do not rewrite the intro before identification/robustness settle.

Anti-patterns

• Treating AEJ: Policy like J. Public Economics (field-only, no broad-interest policy framing) or AEJ: Applied (identification-driven applied micro with no policy question)
• Deferring `aejpol-replication-package` to acceptance — the AEA Data Editor checks **before** publication
• Letting `aejpol-tables-figures` polish exhibits while identification is still moving
• Reporting a clean causal estimate with **no** welfare / cost-benefit / distributional reading — the AEJ: Policy "so what"

Routing by paper archetype

The bottleneck differs by how the policy is identified. Read the archetype, then enter the chain at the right link.

| Archetype | Likely first bottleneck | Enter at | |-----------|-------------------------|----------| | reform / law change (staggered) | TWFE bias; modern DID; pre-trends | `aejpol-identification` | | eligibility threshold / formula | RDD / bunching design + density test | `aejpol-identification` | | field experiment / RCT of a program | estimand + pre-registration + welfare cost | `aejpol-topic-selection` → `aejpol-identification` | | sufficient-statistics / structural welfare | mapping reduced-form estimate to welfare | `aejpol-theory-model` |

Worked routing example (illustrative)

A user says: "My estimate of a tax-credit expansion on employment is clean, but a referee says the paper 'has no policy point' and the welfare claim is hand-waved." Two AEJ: Policy pushbacks — *no welfare/cost-benefit reading* and *takeaway not framed as a policy lesson* — owned by `aejpol-theory-model` (the welfare mapping) and `aejpol-writing-style` (the takeaway). Route to `aejpol-theory-model` to turn the employment elasticity into a marginal-value-of-public-funds / cost-per-job number, then `aejpol-writing-style` for the policy sentence.

Minimal decision