restud-referee-strategy

• SKILL.mdcore · 5,795 bytes

# REStud Referee Strategy (restud-referee-strategy)

## When to trigger

- Before submission, to pre-empt the objections a demanding referee will raise
- When choosing suggested / opposed referees in the submission form
- When deciding which robustness checks to include up front vs. hold in reserve
- When the design or model has a known soft spot you want to confront proactively

## How REStud refereeing works

REStud uses **double-anonymous (double-blind)** refereeing — referees do not see author identities and authors do not see referee identities, so anonymize accordingly (see `restud-submission`). Papers are handled by editors drawn from the active frontier; the Joint Managing Editors (2026: Jan De Loecker, KU Leuven, IO/applied econometrics; Antonio Penta, UPF, micro theory / mechanism design; Jakub Steiner, Zurich/CERGE-EI, behavioral/information economics) span both theory and applied work, reflecting the journal's balanced identity — so anticipate either a theory-leaning or an applied-leaning reader depending on who handles you. REStud is also known for **demanding referees** and for **constructively developing strong papers across rounds**. Two implications:

1. The first report is rarely an accept; a strong paper typically earns an R&R with substantive requests. Plan the submission so the *first* report's requests are ones you can satisfy, not ones that kill the paper.