R&R Rebuttal (jie-rebuttal)
When to trigger
- You have an R&R decision from JIE and must write the response letter
- Referees split between a trade reviewer and an international-macro/finance reviewer
- A referee challenges your gravity specification, instrument, or structural model
- You need to revise without drifting outside JIE's scope or originality gate
How JIE rebuttals work
JIE assigns referees from the relevant half of the field (international trade or international macro/finance), so a typical R&R has comments pulling in two methodological directions. Your letter must satisfy both while keeping the paper original in its motivation or modelling structure — the bar that got it past the desk. Address the handling (Co-)Editor first (Uribe, Arkolakis, or the editor assigned to your trade/macro topic), then each referee point by point.
Structure
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Cover note to the editor: one paragraph on the headline changes; reaffirm scope fit and what is now original/sharper.
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Per-referee, per-point: quote the comment, state the change, point to the exact revised table/figure/section. Use a "Comment → Response → Where" pattern.
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Concessions and limits: where a referee is right, fix it; where a request is out of scope or would dilute the contribution, decline politely with a reason.
JIE-specific response tactics
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Gravity / PPML challenges: if asked about zeros, heteroskedasticity, or multilateral resistance, show the PPML (
ppmlhdfe / fepois) results with importer×exporter×time fixed effects, not log-OLS patches.
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Trade-policy identification: defend pre-trends, staggered-adoption estimators for RTA/tariff timing, or shift-share share-exogeneity (Adao–Kolesar–Morales / Borusyak–Hull–Jaravel inference).
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Open-economy-macro/structural challenges: discipline the model against the targeted moments (spreads, cyclicality, pass-through), report sensitivity to calibration, and show counterfactuals are robust to alternative elasticities.
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Exclusion / exogeneity: argue in three registers — theory, institutional detail, falsification.
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Replication: confirm the revised code and data will be deposited in the JIE secure repository (Mendeley Data) on acceptance.
Anti-patterns
- A defensive letter that argues rather than revises
- Satisfying the trade referee by breaking the macro referee's point (or vice versa)
- "We added a robustness check" with no table or location given
- Patching a gravity log-OLS objection instead of moving to PPML
- Expanding scope so far the paper loses the originality that earned the R&R
Pushback-to-response patterns (JIE-specific)
The recurring R&R demands and the response that closes them. Use the Comment → Response → Where pattern for each.
- "Multilateral resistance not controlled / log-OLS gravity." Response: re-estimate in PPML with importer×time and exporter×time fixed effects, keep zeros, report the new elasticity; point to the revised gravity table.
- "RTA/tariff timing is endogenous." Response: add pair fixed effects, a pre-trend event study, and a placebo on untouched flows; point to the new event-study figure.
- "Structural model matches only targeted moments." Response: add an untargeted-moments panel and a counterfactual robustness sweep over the trade elasticity; point to the new moments table and appendix.
- "Pass-through estimate confounds the source of the exchange-rate move." Response: condition on currency of invoicing, switch to local projections with a clean horizon, and separate the disconnect channel; point to the revised impulse responses.
Worked vignette (illustrative)
A pass-through paper gets an R&R: Referee 1 (macro) wants currency-of-invoicing controls; Referee 2 (trade) questions whether the import-price response is gravity-consistent. The letter opens to the handling editor with the headline change ("we now estimate horizon-by-horizon local projections with invoicing controls; the long-run pass-through estimate moves from, say, 0.6 to 0.5 — illustrative — and is now robust"). Then it answers Referee 1 point-by-point with the new controls and the revised figure location, and answers Referee 2 by showing the estimate is consistent with the structural elasticity in a short appendix — without conceding a control that would break the macro referee's identification. Concede where right, decline-with-reason where a request would dilute the originality that earned the R&R.
Output format
【Decision】R&R (round __)
【Editor】handling (Co-)Editor + topic half (trade / macro-finance)
【Referee 1 points】[comment → response → where] x N
【Referee 2 points】[comment → response → where] x N
【Method fixes】PPML / staggered-DID / structural-discipline updates
【Declined (with reason)】[...]
【Replication】deposit confirmed for acceptance? [Y/N]
【Next step】resubmit via Editorial Manager
Supplementary resources
