jpe-tables-figures

Tables & Figures (jpe-tables-figures)

When to trigger

• Tables are overloaded with columns; the reader cannot find the economic point
• Figures are decorative rather than carrying the argument
• Notes are thin — a reader cannot reconstruct units, sample, or specification from the exhibit alone
• You are deciding what belongs in the main text vs. the online appendix

The JPE exhibit philosophy

A JPE table or figure should be self-contained and economically legible: a referee skimming exhibits should grasp the result, the magnitude, and what it means. As a University of Chicago Press journal, JPE typesets accepted exhibits to Chicago Press production standards — no chartjunk, no gratuitous color, units and economic magnitudes front and center. Every exhibit must also be regenerated by the master script in the JPE Dataverse replication deposit, so the numbers in the paper and the numbers the code produces must match exactly when the JPE Data Editor verifies them at conditional accept (see jpe-replication-package). The headline result usually deserves a figure (an event-study plot, a fit-of-model plot, a counterfactual) because magnitudes and dynamics read faster than a coefficient.

Tables

• Report economic magnitudes, not just stars: effect relative to the mean, an elasticity, a standardized effect, or a dollar/welfare figure.
• One table = one idea. Main results table should fit on a page and be readable without the text.
• Columns build an argument (baseline → +controls → preferred → alternative design), not an undifferentiated grid.
• Standard errors in parentheses; state the clustering level in the note. Prefer reporting CIs or exact SEs over star-only inference.
• Self-contained note: sample, period, unit of observation, dependent-variable definition, specification, SE structure, and what each column adds.

Figures

• Use a figure to carry the main result when dynamics/magnitudes matter (event studies, dose-response, model fit, counterfactual paths).
• Plot confidence bands, not just point estimates. Label axes with units and economic meaning.
• Grayscale-safe and legible in print; no 3-D effects, no unnecessary gridlines.
• Each figure's caption states what the reader should conclude economically.

Main text vs. online appendix

• Main text: the identifying result, the mechanism evidence, the key magnitude, the headline counterfactual — typically a small number of exhibits.
• Online appendix: the full robustness battery, descriptive tables, secondary heterogeneity, and supporting derivations.

Checklist

• Headline result expressed as an economic magnitude (relative to mean / elasticity / welfare), not stars alone
• Main results readable without the surrounding text
• Every table note states sample, period, unit, DV definition, spec, and clustering level
• Columns/panels build an argument rather than dumping specifications
• At least one figure carries the main result with confidence bands
• Figures legible in grayscale; axes labeled with units and meaning
• Heavy robustness/descriptive material moved to the online appendix
• Exhibit numbering matches in-text references exactly

Anti-patterns

• Star-only tables with no economic magnitude — a referee cannot tell if the effect matters
• Numbers in an exhibit that the deposited code does not reproduce — fatal at JPE Data Editor verification
• A 12-column main table that no one can parse
• Figures with no confidence bands, or with chartjunk / 3-D / rainbow palettes
• Notes too thin to reconstruct the specification
• Reporting R² and stars but never the units of the dependent variable
• Putting the full robustness battery in the main text and crowding out the economic story

Output format

【Main exhibits】tables: N, figures: N
【Magnitude reported】mean-relative / elasticity / welfare / standardized
【Headline figure】what it shows + has CIs? [y/n]
【Notes complete】sample/period/unit/DV/spec/clustering present? [y/n]
【Main vs. appendix split】...
【Next】jpe-writing-style