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aeri-topic-selection

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Use when deciding whether a project is the ONE crisp, important, well-identified insight that an American Economic Review: Insights (AER: Insights) short-format manuscript requires, rather than a multi-result paper for AER or a field paper for the AEJ family. Tests single-insight fit; it does not run the analysis.

AER-Insights-Skills/skills/aeri-topic-selection/SKILL.md

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# Topic Selection — Single-Insight Fit (aeri-topic-selection)

## When to trigger

- A project has a strong main result but also two or three secondary results
- Unsure whether to send to AER: Insights, AER, or an AEJ field journal
- The draft is creeping past the word cap because there is more than one idea
- A result feels surprising and clean but you are unsure it is "important enough"

## The AER: Insights bar: one idea, AER-level importance, short

AER: Insights publishes **short, self-contained papers built around a single important, well-executed idea**. The decision is not "is this good?" but "**is there exactly ONE crisp, surprising, well-identified insight that can stand alone in a short paper at AER-level importance?**" Three filters:

1. **Single-insight test.** State the paper in **one sentence** with one headline object (one estimate, one theorem, one fact, one method-changes-the-answer result). If you need "and" to describe the contribution, you likely have an AER paper or two AER: Insights papers, not one.
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