aeja-topic-selection
Use when deciding whether an applied-micro project belongs at the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (AEJ: Applied) rather than AER, AEJ: Economic Policy, or a field journal, and what its central question should be. Sets venue fit and question scope; it does not design the identification (see aeja-identification).
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill aeja-topic-selection --agent claude-code
Same command for any agent — swap --agent for codex, cursor, copilot.
Weekly change comes from our own snapshots, not the repository page — it measures attention, not adoption.
# Topic Selection & Venue Fit (aeja-topic-selection) ## When to trigger - A project is empirically promising but you are unsure it is "AEJ: Applied-shaped" - The question reads like a policy evaluation, a field-specialist note, or a top-general-interest swing — and you need to place it - Several possible framings of the same dataset exist and you must pick the one that lands here - Reviewers (or a co-author) say "this is fine but why this journal?" ## The AEJ: Applied fit test AEJ: Applied wants **empirical applied microeconomics** where a **credible causal research design** answers a **substantive economic question** of **broad applied-micro interest** — above a pure field journal but more specialized than AER. Use this decision table to place the project. | Signal in your project | Likely fit | |------------------------|-----------| | Clean identification + a question labor/dev/health/ed/public economists all care about | **AEJ: Applied** (core) | | Same design but the contribution is mainly a policy verdict / program ROI framing | lean **AEJ: Economic Policy** | | Genuinely general-interest, agenda-setting, methodologically ambitious, long | aim **AER** first | | Contribution is
- When to trigger
- The AEJ: Applied fit test
- Sharpening the question (do this before writing anything)
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Worked vignette (illustrative)
- Sibling-placement quick test
- Output format
What does the aeja-topic-selection skill do?
Use when deciding whether an applied-micro project belongs at the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics (AEJ: Applied) rather than AER, AEJ: Economic Policy, or a field journal, and what its central question should be. Sets venue fit and question scope; it does not design the identification (see aeja-identification).
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill aeja-topic-selection --agent claude-code` — it drops the skill into your project so the agent can pick it up. Swap the --agent value for codex, cursor or copilot if you use one of those.
Where does this skill come from?
From brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, a repository with 909 stars. We read it straight from the repository tree rather than a submitted listing, so what you see here is what is actually published.
Is a popular skill a good skill?
Not necessarily. Stars measure attention, not adoption — a repository can trend for a week and be abandoned. That is why we show the weekly change from our own snapshots next to the total, instead of a single flattering number.