Individual skill
qje-tables-figures
Use when finalizing the main exhibits of a Quarterly Journal of Economics (QJE) manuscript — making the paper figure-forward, with clean tables and self-contained notes that read well in QJE's single-PDF, author-date format. Designs exhibits; it does not run new analysis.
Quarterly-Journal-of-Economics-Skills/skills/qje-tables-figures/SKILL.md
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# Tables & Figures (qje-tables-figures)
## When to trigger
- The main result is a dense table with too many columns
- The paper is "table-heavy" when the design would land better as a figure
- Table notes are incomplete (sample, units, clustering, significance unclear)
- An event-study / RDD / binscatter result is hidden in a table instead of plotted
## QJE aesthetic: figure-forward, self-contained exhibits
QJE has moved firmly toward **figure-forward presentation** — the Opportunity Insights / Chetty-style QJE paper makes its central result legible in one well-designed graph (e.g., the binned mobility maps and exposure-effect plots of the QJE 2014/2018 neighborhoods papers). Identification designs are inherently visual: event-study plots, RDD discontinuity plots, and binned scatters communicate credibility better than a coefficient buried in a regression column. Tables remain essential for estimates and robustness, but the *headline* should often be a figure a reader grasps in five seconds. Practical QJE constraints: at initial submission **everything is one PDF with figures embedded** (no separate figure files), exhibits are numbered and called out in order, and in-text references are **author-date (Chicago)**.
## The headline-figure decision