aer-topic-selectionlisted

# AER Topic Selection ## Overview The single most expensive mistake in top-5 economics is writing a polished manuscript around a contribution that was always going to be desk-rejected. This skill is the **pre-mortem**: stress-test the idea, the audience, and the venue *before* the introduction is drafted. The AER acceptance rate is **6–8%** of submitted papers and the desk rejection rate at the AER family runs **45–62%** depending on the journal. Roughly half of the survival probability is determined before the first paragraph is written. ## When to Use - A new project just started and the contribution sentence cannot be written in one line - The user is undecided between submitting to AER, AER: Insights, or an AEJ - A prior submission was desk-rejected and the user wants to diagnose whether the topic itself was the problem - The paper "feels solid" but no senior colleague has agreed to send it to AER ## The Top-5 Bar A paper clears the top-5 bar if and only if **all four** are true: 1. **Cross-subfield interest.** A labor economist's paper must matter to public, macro, IO, and development economists. Not the median person — the editor. If you cannot name three subfields that would cite it, it is an AEJ paper. 2. **Substantive contribution.** Methodological extension *or* substantive new fact *or* new identification *or* genuinely new data. Competent application of an existing toolkit is desk-rejected. 3. **Self-contained in the first 3 pages.** The editor decides in