restud-topic-selection
Use when evaluating whether a research idea clears the REStud top-5 bar, or when sharpening a fuzzy idea into one clean original contribution for a The Review of Economic Studies (REStud) manuscript. Diagnoses fit and contribution; does not draft prose or design empirics.
Profile →npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill restud-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.
# REStud Topic Selection (restud-topic-selection) ## When to trigger - A new project just started and the contribution cannot be compressed into one sentence - The user is unsure whether the idea is REStud-level or a field-journal paper - A prior desk rejection needs diagnosing — was the *topic* the problem? - The paper "feels solid" but no senior colleague has agreed it is top-5 ## The REStud bar REStud is general-interest and field-agnostic: founded in **1933 to advance theoretical *and* applied economics, especially by younger economists**, it weights theory and applied work equally — a distinct profile from the more empirically tilted top-5s. What it consistently rewards is a **clean, original contribution presented rigorously and economically**. The contribution must be one of: 1. **A new model** — a tractable framework that delivers an economic insight others did not have 2. **A new identification strategy** — a credible research design that makes a previously hard causal question answerable 3. **A striking new empirical fact** — a robust, surprising regularity that reshapes how a literature thinks A paper clears the bar when **all** of the following hold: - **Originality.**
- When to trigger
- The REStud bar
- The contribution-sentence test
- Novelty audit
- Junior-scholar note
- Checklist
- Anti-patterns
- Output format
What does the restud-topic-selection skill do?
Use when evaluating whether a research idea clears the REStud top-5 bar, or when sharpening a fuzzy idea into one clean original contribution for a The Review of Economic Studies (REStud) manuscript. Diagnoses fit and contribution; does not draft prose or design empirics.
How do I install it?
Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill restud-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.