Individual skill
expecon-topic-selection
Use when deciding whether a question is a method-defined fit for an Experimental Economics (ExpEcon) manuscript and which treatment contrast to build it around. Frames the fit decision; it does not invent results or citations.
Experimental-Economics-Skills/skills/expecon-topic-selection/SKILL.md
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# Topic Selection (expecon-topic-selection)
## When to trigger
- You have an interesting economic question but are unsure an experiment is the right tool — or whether *this* journal is the right home for it
- The draft reads topic-first ("a paper about charitable giving") rather than method-first ("a design that isolates warm-glow from social-image motives")
- You must decide *before* collecting data whether to pre-register, run a Registered Report, or pursue a replication
- The paper could plausibly land at JEBO, GEB, AEJ: Micro, or JESA and you need to pick deliberately
## The fit decision: method first, topic second
Experimental Economics is the **ESA method flagship**. The editors do not ask "is this topic important?" so much as "is this **the cleanest experiment** that could answer this question, and does the design *itself* teach the field something?" Three questions decide fit:
1. **Is the object causal and behavioral?** The unit of contribution is a **treatment effect produced by experimental control**, not an observed correlation or a calibrated structural object. If your answer lives in field-survey data, you are at an applied journal, not here.