R&R Revision & Response for JAE (jae-rebuttal)

When to trigger

• You received a JAE revise-and-resubmit and must plan the revision
• Reviewers demand additional identification, mechanism, or robustness tests
• You need to write the point-by-point response letter
• You are unsure how to reconcile conflicting reviewer requests

Revise before you write the letter

Do the empirical and theoretical work first; the response letter documents revisions already made, not promises. At JAE the binding hierarchy is: the Editor's letter first (the contribution framing and the identification that must hold), then each reviewer point. Where the editor and a reviewer conflict, follow the editor and explain the resolution courteously.

Prioritize what JAE referees care about

Because the decision rests on economic mechanism and identification, allocate effort accordingly:

• Identification challenges: add the natural experiment, instrument, placebo, or pre-trend evidence the referee wants; if a clean design is impossible, bound the bias and argue robustness honestly.
• Mechanism: add cross-sectional partitions showing the effect concentrates where the economic friction is severe — often the single most persuasive response.
• Alternative explanations: test them empirically rather than dismissing them in prose.
• Measurement: re-run with alternative proxies (accruals, conservatism, information-asymmetry measures) to show results are not proxy-driven.

Writing the point-by-point response

• Reproduce each comment verbatim, then give your response and point to the exact revised text, table, or new analysis (with page/table numbers).
• Be specific and evidence-based; show the new result rather than asserting robustness.
• Be respectful and concise — economics referees value directness; do not argue past a fair point, and concede gracefully when the referee is right.
• Summarize the major changes in a cover letter to the editor up front.

Practical notes

• Resubmissions carry no submission fee at JAE (the USD 650 fee applies only to unsolicited new manuscripts) — revise thoroughly rather than rushing.
• Keep the manuscript double-anonymized; do not unmask authorship in the response or new acknowledgments.
• Track changes or a marked-up copy if the editor requests it; keep the clean version submission-ready.

Checklist

• Revisions completed before drafting the response
• Editor's framing/identification concerns addressed first
• Every reviewer comment reproduced and answered with specific pointers
• New identification / mechanism / robustness tests added where demanded
• Alternative explanations tested empirically
• Conflicts resolved in the editor's favor, explained politely
• Anonymization preserved; clean and marked copies prepared

Anti-patterns

• Promising changes instead of making them.
• Arguing with the referee rather than addressing the concern.
• Cosmetic robustness that does not engage the identification challenge.
• Ignoring the editor's letter while answering reviewers.
• Unmasking authorship in the response or new acknowledgments.

Response pass for Journal of Accounting and Economics

Use this as a second-pass capability check. First lock the economic mechanism, accounting setting, identification or model, and market/contracting consequence; then test whether the manuscript addresses accounting-economics reviewers who expect economics discipline, identification, and market or contracting implications.

• Primary move: Separate editor-order changes from referee-specific changes; answer each major objection with manuscript edits plus a short evidence citation.
• Decision ledger: return claim / evidence / blocker / next edit rows so the next pass can patch the manuscript directly.
• Neighbor test: compare against JAR for accounting research breadth, TAR for accounting flagship breadth, Review of Accounting Studies for archival/accounting focus; if the neighboring outlet has the stronger audience claim, recommend re-routing before polishing.
• Verification floor: before submission-ready advice, re-open resources/official-source-map.md for volatile rules and name the one unresolved fact that could change the recommendation.

Output format

【Editor priorities addressed】identification / contribution framing ...
【Per-reviewer responses】comment → revision → pointer (page/table)
【New analyses added】design / mechanism partition / robustness
【Conflicts resolved】editor-favored, explained
【Cover letter summary】major changes
【Status】ready to resubmit (no fee) / pending tests