imfer-theory-model
Use when an IMF Economic Review (IMFER) manuscript needs an open-economy model to discipline, interpret, or generate counterfactuals for its evidence — whether a full international-finance model leads the paper or a light framework supports an empirical estimate. Right-sizes the theory to IMFER's policy-relevant bar; it does not design identification (imfer-identification) or run robustness (imfer-robustness).
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill imfer-theory-model --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.
# Theory and Model Craft (imfer-theory-model) ## When to trigger - A referee asks "what open-economy mechanism rationalizes this cross-country fact?" - A reduced-form spillover or capital-flow estimate is credible but its welfare meaning is unclear - You need a counterfactual a regression cannot deliver (an alternative exchange-rate regime, a CFM rule, a debt-restructuring path) - A structural open-economy / DSGE model leads the paper and you must show it is disciplined by data, not assumption - You are tempted to bolt a generic NK-SOE model onto an empirical paper and need to right-size it - A welfare or optimal-policy number is the headline and you must defend its calibration and invariance ## Why theory placement matters at IMFER IMFER sits between the model-heavy international-finance tradition and the empirical-policy tradition, and the editor will route a paper to referees from whichever side it leads with. That makes the *placement decision* consequential: a strong reduced-form paper that opens with two pages of model derivation invites a theory referee who will judge the model on its own terms; a model-led paper with a thin empirical section invites an empirical referee who
- When to trigger
- Why theory placement matters at IMFER
- The IMFER theory dial
- When the model leads
- When the model supports
- The open-economy building blocks referees expect
- Calibration vs. estimation — be explicit
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Worked vignette (illustrative)
- Referee pushback mapped to the theory fix
- Output format
What does the imfer-theory-model skill do?
Use when an IMF Economic Review (IMFER) manuscript needs an open-economy model to discipline, interpret, or generate counterfactuals for its evidence — whether a full international-finance model leads the paper or a light framework supports an empirical estimate. Right-sizes the theory to IMFER's policy-relevant bar; it does not design identification (imfer-identification) or run robustness (imfer-robustness).
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill imfer-theory-model --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.