This is the router. It tells you which aeri- skill to use at the current stage* of a manuscript aimed at American Economic Review: Insights (AER: Insights) — the AEA's short-format, general-interest journal (founded 2019) for papers built around ONE clear, important, well-executed idea, empirical, theoretical, or methodological. The bar is AER-level importance compressed into a short paper. AER: Insights is the short sibling of the American Economic Review (long, multi-result, flagship) and is general-interest, unlike the field-oriented full papers of the AEJ family.
Default assumption: unless the user says otherwise, treat the target as AER: Insights. The two operational tells that you are at AER: Insights and not AER or an AEJ: (1) a hard length cap — main text ≤7,000 words with no exhibits, minus 200 words per exhibit, maximum five exhibits, abstract ≤100 words — papers over the cap are returned unreviewed; (2) a single insight must carry the whole paper, with everything secondary pushed to the online Supplemental Appendix. Process tells: AEA single-blind review that is fast and decisive — no traditional revise-and-resubmit; first decisions are conditional accept or reject, and conditional accepts (usually an 8-week window) are normally not sent back to referees. Editor as of 2026: Matthew Gentzkow (lead editor beginning January 2024; founding editor Amy Finkelstein). Live-check volatile specifics on the official AEA pages.
| Current symptom | Next skill |
|---|---|
| Paper has several results / no single crisp insight; fit to short format unclear | aeri-topic-selection |
| Contribution vs. the closest published work is fuzzy or oversold | aeri-literature-positioning |
| The causal or parameter identification is shaky | aeri-identification |
| A model is present but bloated, or unclear what it must minimally show | aeri-theory-model |
| Robustness is sprawling; unclear what stays in-text vs. appendix | aeri-robustness |
| Over the five-exhibit budget; exhibits are dense or carry significance asterisks | aeri-tables-figures |
| Prose buries the result; abstract/intro do not lead with it; over word cap | aeri-writing-style |
| Data/code deposit, README, or AEA Data Editor prep | aeri-replication-package |
| Want to understand the fast review / conditional-accept-vs-reject odds | aeri-referee-strategy |
| Ready to submit via the AEA portal; need a preflight | aeri-submission |
| Received a conditional accept; need a short, decisive response | aeri-rebuttal |
aeri-topic-selection — confirm ONE crisp, important, well-identified insight that stands aloneaeri-literature-positioning — stake the contribution in one or two paragraphsaeri-identification — make the design or parameter identification clean and self-containedaeri-theory-model — keep only the model the single insight requiresaeri-robustness — the few in-text checks that matter; rest to the appendixaeri-tables-figures — at most five exhibits, no significance asterisksaeri-writing-style — lead with the result; enforce the word budget (abstract + intro last)aeri-replication-package — assemble the AEA-compliant data/code packageaeri-referee-strategy — calibrate expectations for the fast, decisive processaeri-submission — AEA portal preflight (word count + exhibit count)aeri-rebuttal — after the conditional accept
aeri-writing-styleis a late-stage polish, but the word cap is a constraint from day one — track it throughout, not at the end.
aeri-tables-figures polish a sixth exhibit that should not existaeri-replication-package until acceptance — the AEA Data Editor checks before publicationThe single insight differs by archetype; enter the chain at the right link.
| Archetype | Likely first bottleneck | Enter at |
|---|---|---|
| one clean causal estimate (DiD / RDD / IV / experiment) | is the design credible AND is it a single headline number? | aeri-topic-selection → aeri-identification |
| a sharp theoretical result / impossibility | is the model minimal and the result surprising? | aeri-theory-model |
| a methodological point with one application | does the method change a substantive answer in few pages? | aeri-identification → aeri-robustness |
| a striking new fact / measurement | is the fact important enough to stand alone, and robust? | aeri-topic-selection → aeri-robustness |
A user says: "My field experiment has a clean main effect, but I also estimated three heterogeneity splits and a structural extension, and the draft is 9,500 words." That is the canonical AER: Insights problem — one good insight buried under a multi-result, over-cap paper. Route first to aeri-topic-selection to confirm the single headline effect is the paper, then aeri-robustness and aeri-tables-figures to move the heterogeneity and the structural extension to the Supplemental Appendix, then aeri-writing-style to land the draft under the 7,000-word (minus exhibits) cap.
if decision_letter_arrived: -> aeri-rebuttal
elif ready_to_submit: -> aeri-submission
elif over_cap_or_too_many_exhibits: -> aeri-tables-figures / aeri-writing-style
elif robustness_sprawling: -> aeri-robustness
elif model_bloated: -> aeri-theory-model
elif identification_shaky: -> aeri-identification
elif contribution_fuzzy: -> aeri-literature-positioning
else: -> aeri-topic-selection