From qje-skills
War-games likely referee objections for a QJE manuscript before submission to close gaps pre-emptively. Guides stress-testing identification, generality, and mechanism claims.
How this skill is triggered — by the user, by Claude, or both
Slash command
/qje-skills:qje-referee-strategyThe summary Claude sees in its skill listing — used to decide when to auto-load this skill
- The paper is nearly submission-ready and you want to stress-test it adversarially
QJE is the fastest top-5 journal at desk — its five Harvard-based Editors desk-decide in roughly two weeks and desk-reject a clear majority (commonly cited around 60%+), with an unconditional acceptance rate of only ~1-4%. Review is double-blind, so you cannot tailor to a known referee; you must satisfy the toughest plausible expert. Two consequences: (1) the paper has to survive a fast, skim-level editor screen before any referee sees it, so the big idea and clean identification must be visible up front; (2) for papers that survive, QJE grants few rounds with demanding referees, so you usually get one substantive shot. Anticipate the report you would write if you were the toughest expert in your subfield, and answer it in advance.
| Referee type | What they attack | Pre-empt by... |
|---|---|---|
| The identification hawk | The exogeneity claim; pre-trends; exclusion restriction | Falsification + placebo evidence in the body (see qje-identification) |
| The "so what?" skeptic | Generality; whether the answer matters to all of econ | A crisp broad-lesson + magnitude benchmarking (qje-topic-selection) |
| The mechanism doubter | Whether the proposed channel is the real one | A testable prediction confirmed in data (qje-theory-model) |
【Desk-screen test】big idea + variation visible in 2 pages? [Y/N]
【Hostile report】[5–8 strongest objections]
【Fundamentals】[threats that must be fixed pre-submission] — status each
【Robustness asks】[appendix answers] — status each
【Pre-empted in text】the biggest concern, addressed where: ...
【Referee suggestions】[expert, fair, conflict-free]
【Next step】qje-submission
npx claudepluginhub brycewang-stanford/awesome-journal-skills --plugin qje-skillsAnticipates referee and co-editor objections for JEEA manuscripts, calibrates desk-reject risk and timeline expectations, and plans pre-emptive defense strategies before submission.
Anticipates and pre-empts objections from Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization (JEBO) referees before submission — demand effects, mechanism-vs-alternative, external validity, sibling-journal fit. Helps triage fatal vs. addressable issues.
Anticipates and pre-empts referee objections for Economic Journal manuscripts. Focuses on broad interest, identification, and mechanism concerns.