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aejpol-topic-selection
Use when deciding whether a project fits AEJ: Economic Policy rather than J. Public Economics, AEJ: Applied, or AER, and when sharpening the policy question and its welfare stake for an AEJ: Economic Policy manuscript. Frames fit and the policy-question-first contribution; it does not design the identification or run estimation.
AEJ-Economic-Policy-Skills/skills/aejpol-topic-selection/SKILL.md
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# Topic Selection & Policy-Question Fit (aejpol-topic-selection)
## When to trigger
- You have a clean empirical result but are unsure it is "an AEJ: Policy paper"
- The project could plausibly go to J. Public Economics, AEJ: Applied, or AER and you must pick
- A referee or colleague says the question is "narrow," "not a policy paper," or "so what?"
- You can state a finding but not yet a **policy question** with a **welfare / cost-benefit / distributional** stake
## The AEJ: Policy bar — lead with the policy question
AEJ: Policy publishes the **economic analysis OF policy**: a paper is built around a **policy question** ("should this tax / mandate / subsidy / regulation exist, expand, or change, and at what welfare cost?") whose answer carries a **welfare, cost-benefit, or distributional** implication of **broad interest** to the AEA readership. Two halves must both be present from the first page:
1. **A real policy lever.** A specific instrument someone could pull — a credit, a tax schedule, an eligibility rule, an emissions standard, a transfer, a mandate, an enforcement regime. Not just "an interesting natural experiment."