jimf-robustness

Robustness Strategy (jimf-robustness)

When to trigger

• The main coefficient is in hand but a referee will ask whether it survives sample, period, and measurement choices
• The result might be driven by one crisis episode, one dominant country (the US), or one regime
• Inference is OLS-clustered-one-way and the panel has serial and cross-sectional correlation
• You are assembling a robustness section and want it to answer threats, not pad column count

The JIMF robustness logic: every check answers a named threat

A JIMF robustness section is persuasive when each exhibit is tied to an international-finance threat to inference, not when it is a wall of specifications. Build the section as a threat → check map. The threats that JIMF referees raise most are: a single global episode driving everything; US-centrism; regime dependence; a fragile measurement choice; and inference that ignores cross-country dependence.

Threat (JIMF-specific)	Check that answers it
One global episode drives the result (GFC, taper tantrum, COVID)	Drop the episode / window; rolling samples; show stability
US-centrism — the result is the dollar / the Fed, not "international"	Drop the US; use NEER not USD; replicate with ECB/other-center shocks
Regime dependence (peg vs. float; capital-account open vs. closed)	Split by Ilzetzki–Reinhart–Rogoff regime; interact with openness (Chinn–Ito / AREAER)
Fragile measurement	Swap CDS↔spread, gross↔net flows, VIX↔GFCy factor, policy rate↔shadow rate
Cross-country / serial dependence in inference	Two-way clustering; Driscoll–Kraay; wild-cluster bootstrap with few countries
Reverse causality / anticipation	Lead-lag tests; placebo windows; controls for ex-ante exposure
Outliers / influential country-quarters	Winsorize; jackknife by country; influence diagnostics
Omitted global factor	Add time fixed effects (absorbs common shocks) and show within-time variation still identifies

How to sequence and present it

1. Lead with the threat the referee will raise first — usually "this is just the GFC" or "this is just the dollar." Answer it in the main text, not the appendix.
2. Show point-estimate stability, not just significance. A coefficient that wanders from 0.6 to 0.1 across measures is fragile even if each stays "significant." Plot the estimate across specifications (a specification curve or coefficient-stability figure reads well at JIMF).
3. Use time fixed effects as both a control and a diagnostic. Adding time FE that absorb all common global shocks and seeing the within-time (cross-country) coefficient survive is the cleanest answer to "it's the global cycle."
4. Match inference to the panel. With ~20–60 countries and serially correlated errors, one-way clustering understates SEs; report Driscoll–Kraay or two-way clustering, and wild-cluster bootstrap when the cluster count is small.
5. Demote the rest to the online appendix with a map (see jimf-internet-appendix).

Checklist

• Each robustness exhibit names the threat it answers
• "It's just the GFC/COVID" answered by dropping the episode and by rolling samples
• "It's just the dollar/Fed" answered by dropping the US, using NEER, or a non-US center
• Regime/openness dependence tested (IRR classification; Chinn–Ito / AREAER openness)
• Headline measure swapped for the leading alternative; point estimate stable, not just significant
• Inference accounts for cross-country and serial dependence (Driscoll–Kraay / two-way / wild bootstrap)
• Influential single country ruled out (jackknife by country)
• The two reflex checks (drop-US, drop-episode) are in the main text, not buried in the appendix
• Time fixed effects shown to leave within-time identification intact (or absence justified)

Anti-patterns

• A robustness section that is 15 specifications with no statement of which threat each addresses
• Reporting only that significance survives while the point estimate halves across measures
• Never dropping the US or the GFC episode — the two checks every JIMF referee wants
• One-way clustering on a 30-country panel with obvious serial and cross-sectional correlation
• Treating "we added more controls" as robustness when the threat is a global confounder (which time FE, not controls, address)
• Burying the most important robustness (regime split, drop-US) in the appendix where the editor won't see it

Robustness vs. identification (do not confuse them)

A robustness section cannot rescue a non-identified estimate; it can only show an identified estimate is stable. If a referee's concern is that the result is not causal (a global confounder, endogenous policy), that is an identification problem owned by jimf-identification — adding twenty more specifications does not address it. Robustness here means: holding the identification fixed, does the magnitude survive reasonable choices of sample, period, regime, measure, and inference? Keep the two sections distinct, and do not pad robustness to compensate for a weak design.

Worked vignette (illustrative)

A draft's headline is that capital-account openness amplifies spillovers. The referee suspects it is mechanically the 2008 crisis and the dollar. The JIMF fix: (1) drop 2008Q3–2009Q2 and show the interaction holds; (2) re-estimate with time fixed effects so only cross-country differences in openness identify the coefficient; (3) split by IRR regime and show the amplification is in floats; (4) re-run with two-way (country and quarter) clustering, where the openness interaction stays at ~0.4 (s.e. 0.15, illustrative). Each check is captioned with the threat it kills.

Referee pushback mapped to the robustness fix

• "This is just the 2008 crisis." → Drop the crisis window and show the coefficient holds; add rolling-sample estimates so the reader sees stability over time.
• "This is just the dollar / the US." → Drop the US from the panel; re-run in NEER terms; replicate with a non-US monetary center (ECB) where feasible.
• "It only works for floats / open economies." → Either own the regime dependence as a finding (split by IRR / openness) or show it holds across regimes.
• "Your standard errors are too small." → Move from one-way to two-way or Driscoll–Kraay; wild-cluster bootstrap with few countries; report how inference changes.
• "One country drives this." → Jackknife by country; show the estimate is not an artifact of a single influential country-quarter.

Sequencing the robustness section against page limits

Lead the main-text robustness with the two checks every JIMF referee runs in their head — drop the obvious episode and drop the US — plus the time-FE diagnostic for the global confounder. Put measurement swaps and the full regime/openness grid in the online appendix with an index (see jimf-internet-appendix). The goal is that the editor, reading only the body, already sees the result is not the crisis, not the dollar, and not the global cycle; everything else is there for the referee who wants it.

Output format

【Journal】Journal of International Money and Finance
【Skill】jimf-robustness
【Top threat answered in main text】GFC-only / dollar-only / regime / measurement / inference
【Stability shown】point estimate across specs (not just significance)? [Y/N]
【Regime + openness split】IRR / Chinn–Ito / AREAER tested? [Y/N]
【Inference】Driscoll–Kraay / two-way / wild bootstrap as warranted
【Demoted to appendix】list → jimf-internet-appendix
【Next skill】jimf-tables-figures