Referee Strategy & Objection Pre-Mortem (rfs-referee-strategy)

When to trigger

• The portal asks for suggested and opposed reviewers
• You want to anticipate the objections RFS referees will raise before they do
• A coauthor asks "who will referee this and what will they hate?"
• Preparing the cover letter's referee section

Two jobs: referee selection and objection pre-mortem

A. Suggesting and opposing referees

• Suggest referees who are active in your exact sub-field, have published the closest methods, and can evaluate both the novelty and the rigor. RFS referees are usually the authors you cite most.
• Aim for a balanced slate: not only your closest collaborators' circle, and not only theorists for an empirical paper (or vice versa).
• Oppose referees only with a brief, professional reason (active competing project, prior dispute, direct conflict). Do not over-exclude — editors notice and discount long oppose lists.
• Never suggest coauthors, advisors/advisees, or same-institution colleagues — these are conflicts the editor will strike.
• Do not suggest a current RFS editor as a referee. Know who handles your area (e.g., Viral Acharya, Xavier Giroud, Andrey Malenko, Anna Pavlova, Clemens Sialm, David Sraer, Jessica Wachter, under Executive Editor Tarun Ramadorai) — your suggested referees should complement, not duplicate, the editor pool.
• The editor chooses; your list is advisory. Make it easy for them to find qualified, fair referees.

B. Objection pre-mortem (the high-value step)

Anticipate the specific objections an RFS referee will raise and address them before submission. Common RFS referee challenges:

For each likely objection: write the one-paragraph answer now, and make sure the paper (or IA) already contains the evidence that answer points to.

Reading the desk-reject vs. send-out signal

An RFS Editor desk-screens before referees ever see the paper. Concrete triggers that draw a desk reject:

• Perceived novelty shortfall — the single most common RFS desk reject. A clean re-run of a known design on new data reads as a field-journal paper. Make the contribution unmissable in the abstract and first two pages.
• A visible identification threat the editor can see immediately. Surface your source of variation early so the editor does not assume it is absent.
• Scope mismatch — out of the journal's financial-economics remit, or better suited to a sibling SFS journal (Review of Asset Pricing Studies, Review of Corporate Finance Studies).
• Concurrent submission elsewhere — RFS prohibits it (the permitted exception is the RFS–SFS Cavalcade dual submission, which is not a violation).
• No plan to release code — RFS requires public code release as a condition of publication; signal compliance early.
• If two strong sub-fields could referee the paper (e.g., asset pricing and intermediation), suggest at least one from each so the editor can triangulate.
• If results are not yet in hand but the design is strong, the Registered Reports (Stage 1) route can pre-empt a "results-driven" desk reject entirely.

Cover-letter referee note

• Keep it to a few sentences: name suggested referees and a one-clause reason each; name opposed referees with a brief professional reason; confirm no concurrent submission elsewhere (note an RFS–SFS Cavalcade dual submission if applicable — that route is permitted).

Checklist

• Suggested referees are sub-field experts who can judge novelty AND rigor
• No conflicted names suggested (coauthors, advisors, same institution)
• No current RFS editor suggested as a referee
• Opposed list is short and professionally justified
• Top 5–8 likely objections written out with a planned response
• Each anticipated objection has supporting evidence already in the paper/IA
• The "not novel enough" risk is specifically pre-empted in the intro

Anti-patterns

• A long opposed-referee list — signals defensiveness; editors discount it.
• Suggesting only friendly or conflicted referees.
• Ignoring the "incremental" objection because the empirics are clean.
• Discovering a fatal objection only after the reports arrive.
• Suggesting referees who cannot evaluate the method (e.g., pure theorists for a microstructure paper).

Output format

【Suggested referees】[names + why each: sub-field + method fit]
【Opposed】[short, justified]
【Top objections】[objection → planned response → where evidence lives]
【Novelty defense】one-paragraph pre-empt for the "incremental" risk
【Next step】rfs-submission (finalize) → await decision → rfs-rebuttal