ier-referee-strategy
Use when anticipating referee objections before submitting an International Economic Review (IER) manuscript, or when reading the room of an IER review. Maps the likely objections by archetype and pre-empts them; it does not draft the response letter (see ier-rebuttal).
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill ier-referee-strategy --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.
# Referee Strategy (ier-referee-strategy) ## When to trigger - The paper is near submission and you want to find the objection that would sink it before a referee does - You are deciding what to put in the paper vs. hold in reserve for the response - A draft is strong but you suspect one undefended assumption or one fragile number is the soft spot - You want to calibrate expectations for IER's review (a rigor-gated, theory-leaning process) ## How IER referees read An IER referee is usually a rigor-minded economist who reads for **whether the contribution is correct, general, and tightly linked to its evidence**. Unlike a top-5 referee, they are not primarily asking "is this important enough"; they are asking "is this right, and does it teach a general lesson." The most common reasons an IER paper stalls are: an undefended load-bearing assumption, identification that is "calibration in disguise," a headline number that moves under a reasonable perturbation, or a proof that is not airtight. Pre-empt by archetype: | Archetype | The objection that sinks it | Pre-empt by | |-----------|-----------------------------|-------------| | Pure / applied theory | "The result is knife-edge / re-
- When to trigger
- How IER referees read
- The pre-mortem routine
- Calibrating expectations for an IER review
- Worked example (illustrative)
- The cover letter does the desk editor's filing for them
- Pre-empt where the referee looks, not where it is convenient
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Branch-specific soft spots to audit before submitting
- Output format
What does the ier-referee-strategy skill do?
Use when anticipating referee objections before submitting an International Economic Review (IER) manuscript, or when reading the room of an IER review. Maps the likely objections by archetype and pre-empts them; it does not draft the response letter (see ier-rebuttal).
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill ier-referee-strategy --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.