From jimf-skills
Guides construction of cross-country/time-series datasets for JIMF manuscripts, addressing measurement choices, sample period, frequency alignment, and country splits.
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/jimf-skills:jimf-empirical-designThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
- A cross-country panel is unbalanced, mixes incompatible series, or pools regimes that should be separated
International-finance referees scrutinize measurement and comparability as hard as identification, because cross-country data are heterogeneous and easy to mis-align. Three recurring fault lines: (1) which series — there are several defensible measures of every JIMF object, and the choice matters; (2) which countries and period — advanced vs. emerging, pre- vs. post-GFC, in-vs-out of a crisis window; (3) what frequency and alignment — mixing frequencies without saying how. Make each explicit and defend it before the result.
| JIMF object | Measurement choices to declare | Common referee objection |
|---|---|---|
| Exchange rate | bilateral USD vs. NEER/REER; nominal vs. real; end-of-period vs. average | "Your result is a dollar effect, not an exchange-rate effect" |
| Capital flows | gross vs. net; BoP (quarterly) vs. EPFR (high-frequency fund flows); by instrument (debt/equity/bank) | "EPFR is fund flows, not balance-of-payments flows" |
| Pass-through | import prices vs. CPI; aggregate vs. invoicing-currency level; horizon of pass-through | "Aggregate ERPT hides the dominant-currency margin" |
| Sovereign risk | CDS vs. EMBI/bond spread vs. rating; local- vs. foreign-currency debt | "LC and FC sovereign risk are different objects" |
| Global financial cycle | VIX vs. a factor (Miranda-Agrippino–Rey) vs. US shadow rate | "VIX is a proxy, not the GFCy" |
| Monetary stance | policy rate vs. shadow rate vs. surprise; domestic vs. foreign | "The ZLB period breaks your policy-rate measure" |
A draft regresses quarterly EM "capital flows" on a daily US surprise and finds a strong effect, but the flows are EPFR weekly fund flows aggregated to quarters and the panel drops three countries during their crises. The JIMF fix: state that EPFR captures benchmarked-fund flows (a leading indicator), not BoP flows, and either align the analysis at the native weekly frequency via local projections or report both; keep the crisis countries in with a balanced-panel robustness; and report whether the effect is a dollar phenomenon (USD bilateral) or survives in NEER terms.
Name the canonical datasets and their roles so the design reads as field-literate: IMF IFS/BoP for macro and flows; BIS for cross-border banking and FX statistics; IMF AREAER and the Chinn–Ito index for capital-account openness; the Ilzetzki–Reinhart–Rogoff classification for de facto exchange-rate regimes; Lane–Milesi-Ferretti for external positions; EPFR for high-frequency fund flows; Datastream/Bloomberg for prices, CDS, and yields. Using the wrong dataset for an object (e.g. a de jure regime classification when the question is de facto behavior) is a credibility tell referees catch quickly.
Before estimating, lock five decisions and write the one-line justification for each — they are the questions a referee asks before reading Table 1:
Settling these up front prevents the most common revision loop, where a measurement choice the authors never justified turns out to drive the headline result.
【Journal】Journal of International Money and Finance
【Skill】jimf-empirical-design
【Country set / split】AE / EM / both → justified? [Y/N]
【Sample period / regimes】window + breaks handled
【Key measures declared】FX convention / flows type / risk measure / GFCy proxy
【Frequency】native / aggregated / mixed-frequency method
【Data sources】named to series + vintage; splicing documented? [Y/N]
【Next skill】jimf-robustness
npx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin jimf-skillsStress-tests identification strategies for Journal of International Money and Finance manuscripts: high-frequency policy/FX surprises, capital-control natural experiments, and open-economy causal designs.
Hardens data construction, measurement, and sample design for JMCB manuscripts using bank/central-bank micro-data, monetary series, or supervisory sources.
Guides targeting or preparing a manuscript for the Journal of International Money and Finance (JIMF), covering topic fit, method and evidence bar, house style, and desk-reject risks.