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restud-robustness

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Use when the main results of a The Review of Economic Studies (REStud) manuscript exist but referee-anticipating checks — robustness, heterogeneity, mechanism, placebo, alternative specifications — are missing or fragile. Hardens the result against demanding referees; does not redesign identification.

Review-of-Economic-Studies-Skills/skills/restud-robustness/SKILL.md

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# REStud Robustness (restud-robustness)

## When to trigger

- The main result rests on a single specification
- No placebo / falsification evidence exists
- A referee will say "the effect is driven by X" and you have no pre-empting check
- The result is statistically marginal and sensitivity is undocumented
- Heterogeneity or mechanism evidence is absent and the channel is asserted, not shown

## The REStud standard

REStud referees are demanding and the journal is known for *developing strong papers across rounds*. A robust REStud result is one that **does not hinge on one fragile specification**. The goal of this stage is to find the weak point before a referee does, and either fix it or report it honestly. Robustness is not a wall of extra tables — it is targeted evidence against the most plausible alternative explanations. Two REStud-specific facts shape how you stage it: (1) bulk robustness belongs in the **online appendix / supplementary file**, with only the decisive checks in the main text; (2) for an *accepted* empirical paper, every robustness number must be reproducible, because the **Data Editor (Miklós Koren) reruns your code before publication** under the AEA DCAS standard (see `restud-replication-package`) — a check you cannot regenerate from the deposit is a liability, not a defense.
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