econ-write

Econ Writing Skill

An Agent Skill that transforms AI assistants into expert economics paper writers, synthesizing best practices from 50+ authoritative guides by Nobel laureates, Clark Medal winners, and leading economists.

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What Is This?

Econ Writing Skill is an open-source Agent Skill that gives AI coding assistants deep knowledge of how to write economics papers. It distills actionable advice from over 50 guides by John Cochrane, Deirdre McCloskey, Jesse Shapiro, Keith Head, Marc Bellemare, Claudia Goldin, Edward Glaeser, Michael Kremer, and many others into a single structured skill file. Compatible with the Agent Skills open standard, it works with Claude Code and OpenAI Codex out of the box.

It is part of a suite covering the rest of the paper's life: econ-paper-review-skill reviews the finished draft like a journal referee — an AI referee report with verified comments and a revision plan — and econ-slides-skill turns the paper into a professional LaTeX/Beamer talk with a timed speaker script.

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Key Features

Writing & Structure

• Works for all paper types -- Applied empirical, pure theory, mixed theory-empirical, structural, and descriptive papers each get tailored structure and guidance
• Dedicated formulas for every major section -- Abstract (4-part formula), Introduction (Head's formula), Model Section (Glaeser/Varian), Data Section, Conclusion (3-part formula), Title (with evaluation criteria)
• Identification strategy guidance -- Specific writing advice for 13 strategies: RCT, DiD (including staggered), IV, RDD, Synthetic Control, Synthetic DiD, Bunching, Shift-Share/Bartik, Event Studies, ML for Causal Inference, Structural Estimation, Descriptive, plus guidance for papers using multiple strategies
• Theory paper support -- Model presentation, proposition writing, and Glaeser's "start with an example" approach
• Field-specific conventions -- Macro (calibration tables, IRFs, DSGE), trade (gravity, PPML), development (CONSORT, cost-effectiveness), finance (Fama-MacBeth, winsorization)

Style & Quality

• Style rules from McCloskey and Cochrane -- Active voice, concrete language, triangular structure, reader-first writing
• Anti-AI writing patterns -- Eliminate telltale AI-generated writing (banned words, uniform sentence length, generic phrasing) and write like a real economist
• Title evaluation framework -- Score titles on clarity, specificity, length, and memorability with good/bad examples
• Citation integrity -- Anti-hallucination guidance for verifying references, distinguishing working paper vs. published versions
• Economic significance framework -- Translate coefficients into meaningful units, policy benchmarks, and back-of-envelope calculations
• Tables and figures best practices -- Self-contained captions, figure vs. table trade-offs, data visualization from Schwabish (JEP)

Review & Assessment

• Paper review and audit mode -- Simulated 3-reviewer feedback (Methodologist, Field Expert, Writing Critic) with a 100-point scoring rubric
• Pre-submission checklist -- 24-item checklist covering content, style, and modern standards
• Evaluation test suite -- 18 test cases for benchmarking skill output quality

Academic Workflow

• Job market paper (JMP) guidance -- Title, abstract, introduction polish, length, signaling breadth
• Grant proposal writing -- NSF, ERC proposal guidance: feasibility, budget justification, timeline, selling a plan vs. presenting findings
• Referee response guidance -- Point-by-point response structure for revise-and-resubmit
• Policy brief and op-ed writing -- Translate findings for non-academic audiences with plain language and concrete recommendations
• Working paper to journal conversion -- Cutting strategy, journal-specific length norms (AER, AER Insights, REStat), appendix organization
• Dissertation structure -- Three-essays format, chapter structure, authorship rules
• Survey and review paper writing -- JEL, JEP, Handbook chapter conventions
• Coauthorship conventions -- Voice consistency, designated "voice editor", signaling individual contributions

Modern Standards