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qje-topic-selection

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Use when scoping or pressure-testing a research question for a Quarterly Journal of Economics (QJE) submission — checks fit, the "big idea" bar, and breadth of the takeaway for QJE's general-interest readership. Diagnoses scope fit; it does not design the empirics.

Quarterly-Journal-of-Economics-Skills/skills/qje-topic-selection/SKILL.md

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# Topic Selection & Fit (qje-topic-selection)

## When to trigger

- You have data or a result but the "so what?" is unclear
- You are unsure whether the idea is top-5 material or a field-journal paper
- The question is narrow, technical, or interesting only to specialists
- You can describe what you *did* but not the *broad lesson* it teaches

## The QJE bar: a big question with a broad answer

QJE is a general-interest journal covering all of economics, published by OUP and edited at Harvard since **1886** (the oldest English-language economics journal). Its comparative advantage is the **compelling question + credible empirics + a conceptual takeaway with broad implications** — the journal that ran Akerlof's "Market for 'Lemons'" (QJE 1970) and Mankiw, Romer & Weil's "Contribution to the Empirics of Economic Growth" (QJE 1992) rewards papers that *change how a wide audience thinks*, not just precise estimates. Editorial reality reinforces this: five Harvard-based Editors desk-screen in ~2 weeks, so the big idea must be visible immediately. Force the idea through three filters:

1. **The question filter** — Would a smart economist outside your subfield want to know the answer? State the question in one sentence a labor economist, a macroeconomist, and a development economist would all find interesting.
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