From population-and-development-review-skills
Defends the research design of a Population and Development Review manuscript, guiding method choice (life tables, decomposition, event-history, APC, projections) and causal identification for population-and-development questions.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/population-and-development-review-skills:popdevr-research-designThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
PDR accepts a wide range of approaches — empirical demography, formal demography, and conceptual
PDR accepts a wide range of approaches — empirical demography, formal demography, and conceptual
synthesis — but is demanding about each, and it asks one extra question: does the design illuminate the
population-and-development linkage, not just a demographic quantity? The design must credibly connect
the argument (popdevr-theory-building) to evidence a broad readership will trust. This skill is
method-aware: pick the section that matches your question and defend it against the strongest rival.
popdevr-literature-positioningFor the single strongest rival explanation (e.g., reverse causation, compositional change, selection, institutional confounding), write one sentence: "If the rival were true rather than my account, the pattern would look like ___; instead it looks like ___." If you cannot, the design does not yet identify the population-and-development contribution.
PDR papers often compare countries or development contexts, and a cross-national contrast is only as good as its comparability. Before reading a between-country gap as a development effect, settle three things:
State which of these you have controlled and which remain a caveat in popdevr-tables-figures notes.
If the paper's contribution is a framework rather than an analysis, the "design" is the argument
architecture: the propositions, the evidence marshaled for each, and the boundary where the framework
stops applying. Route the rigor through popdevr-theory-building and popdevr-writing-style instead of
this skill's estimation machinery, but still pass the adjudication test against the prior framework it
revises.
【Method】life table / decomposition / event history / APC / projection / causal
【Quantity / estimand】what is measured or identified + its development linkage
【Key assumption(s)】and how each is defended (name the APC constraint if used)
【Rival ruled out】the adjudication sentence (incl. reverse causation if relevant)
【Robustness/sensitivity】planned checks
【Next】popdevr-data-analysis
../../resources/external_tools.md — life-table, decomposition, survival, APC, and projection packages../../resources/official-source-map.md — PDR scope and methodological breadthnpx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin population-and-development-review-skillsDefends research design for Demography manuscripts: selects among demographic methods (life tables, decomposition, event-history, APC, multistate, microsimulation, projections) and justifies causal identification. Strengthens design without writing code.
Builds a Population and Development Review manuscript argument by making mechanisms, scope conditions, and observable implications explicit. For empirical studies, formal models, or synthetic essays that need a clear population-and-development claim.
Defends a Social Forces manuscript's research design—causal identification, demographic methods, case selection/process tracing, or network/computational pipelines—to meet reviewer standards.