From journal-of-economic-geography-skills
Structures a revision and response for Journal of Economic Geography decision letters, balancing cross-disciplinary referee demands from economists and geographers.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/journal-of-economic-geography-skills:jegeo-rebuttalThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
- An R&R or major-revision letter arrived and you must triage the reports
At JEG the reports almost always come from both communities, and the most common rebuttal failure is answering the referee you understand and brushing off the other. Before drafting, classify every comment by where it comes from and what it really wants:
| Comment type | Likely source | What it actually demands |
|---|---|---|
| "not identified / selection / weak IV" | economist | a design fix or honest bound, not more prose |
| "inference overstated / spatial correlation" | economist | Conley SEs / corrected clustering |
| "where is the geography / just a fixed effect" | geographer | place made analytically central; mechanism in prose |
| "no mechanism / no theory it speaks to" | geographer | a conceptual frame the result engages |
| "wrong scale / MAUP" | either | re-estimate across scales; justify the unit |
| "over-formalized / flattens real places" | geographer | interpretation and context, not more math |
Referees at JEG often ask for additional spatial work — another scale, a different weight matrix, a spillover model, a finer unit. Decide each with a rule, not reflexively:
Reporting a bounded result after a requested spatial check is a strength signal at JEG; quietly dropping the check or reporting only the favorable version is the fastest way to lose the editor's trust on resubmission.
A major-revision letter has an economist referee demanding the agglomeration elasticity be estimated structurally rather than reduced-form, and a geographer referee warning that "more modeling will bury the regional story." These pull in opposite directions. The losing move is to side silently with one. The winning move: add the structural estimate the economist wants, but pair it in the same revision with a tightened mechanism paragraph and a map that keeps the regional story visible for the geographer — then, in the response letter, name the tension explicitly to the editor and explain how the revision serves both. If the structural estimate moves the headline number (say from 0.08 to 0.06, illustrative), report it honestly; a bounded, candid number survives a JEG panel better than a defended original.
JEG editors sit on the bridge and weigh whether your revision reconciled two reports rather than placating one. Make their job easy: open with their letter's framing, show in one paragraph how the revision addresses the cross-disciplinary tension, and where the referees conflict, propose the resolution rather than forcing the editor to adjudicate. A response that visibly bridges the two reports is the strongest signal you understood what JEG is.
【Journal】Journal of Economic Geography
【Skill】jegeo-rebuttal
【Decision】R&R / major / minor
【Economist-report fixes】comment → located evidence (done/declined+reason)
【Geographer-report fixes】comment → located evidence (done/declined+reason)
【Conflicts surfaced to editor】tension + proposed resolution
【Core claim status】protected / adjusted (how)
【Next step】resubmit via ScholarOne; route new bottlenecks through jegeo-workflow
npx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin journal-of-economic-geography-skillsBuilds a point-by-point response to an Annals of the American Association of Geographers decision letter (major/minor revision), structuring rebuttals for the subject editor and 1-3 referees across the journal's four areas.
Maps likely referee objections for Journal of Economic Geography manuscripts, anticipating economist and geographer critiques to pre-empt them before submission.
Strategizes response letters and revision plans for Journal of Urban Economics (JUE) decision letters. Triages referee comments, routes spatial/identification concerns to relevant skills, and crafts a point-by-point reply.