Agent skill

Restat Referee Strategy

by brycewang-stanford in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills

A skill your agent uses when anticipating the objections a The Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat) referee will raise for a given design, and pre-empting them in the manuscript before…

MITAuto-check passedResearch & Science

Install Restat Referee Strategy

skills CLI
$ npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill restat-referee-strategy -a claude-code

Project install by default; add -g for ~/.claude/skills/.

GitHub CLI
$ gh skill install brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills restat-referee-strategy --agent claude-code

Project scope by default; add --scope user for a personal install. Needs GitHub CLI 2.90.0 or later (public preview).

Manual copy
$ git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.git skills-src && mkdir -p .claude/skills && cp -r skills-src/Review-of-Economics-and-Statistics-Skills/skills/restat-referee-strategy .claude/skills/restat-referee-strategy && rm -rf skills-src

Use ~/.claude/skills/ instead of .claude/skills for a personal install. The folder must contain SKILL.md.

Claude Code skills documentation · loads skills from .claude/skills/

Facts

Skill name
restat-referee-strategy
GitHub stars
1.2k
Token cost
~1.3k tokens
SKILL.md length
596 words
Files
1
Skills in repo
2,387
Repo updated
First seen
Licence
MIT

At a glance

A skill your agent uses when anticipating the objections a The Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat) referee will raise for a given design, and pre-empting them in the manuscript before…

  • Works in 5 steps: Rank the threats. List the 4–6… → Answer the top one in the main text —… → Budget the rest between main text and… → …
  • Anticipating the objections a The Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat) referee will raise for a given design
  • SKILL.md covers When to trigger, The REStat referee mindset, Threat → pre-emption map by… and Strategy moves, plus 4 more sections
  • Instructions only: no scripts, shell commands, URLs or credentials in SKILL.md

What it does

Restat Referee Strategy is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when anticipating the objections a The Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat) referee will raise for a given design, and pre-empting them in the manuscript before submission. Maps threats to defenses; it does not draft the post-decision response letter (that is restat-rebuttal).

Its SKILL.md is about 1.3k tokens, which your agent loads only when the skill is triggered. It is a single SKILL.md file with no bundled scripts.

It sits in Research & Science, covering Peer review and Statistics. The repository describes itself as: Journal-specific Claude Code/Codex skill packs covering mainstream journals — AER, QJE, Nature, Cell, 管理世界, 经济研究 & 200+ more — your fast track to getting published. | 覆盖主流期刊的… The licence is MIT.

When your agent uses it

  • Anticipating the objections a The Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat) referee will raise for a given design
  • Pre-empting them in the manuscript before submission

Example prompts

  • “/restat-referee-strategy”

Workflow steps

5 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

  1. Rank the threats. List the 4–6 objections this design invites, hardest first.
  2. Answer the top one in the main text — one paragraph + one exhibit — so the referee sees it pre-empted.
  3. Budget the rest between main text and online appendix; signal in the text where the appendix answers a concern.
  4. Pre-write the hard concession. Where the design is genuinely limited, state the limit and bound it — this buys referee trust.
  5. Match exhibits to threats (hand to restat-robustness for the suite, restat-tables-figures for presentation).

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit 932eb23. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

  • Tool permissions

    Pre-approves nothing: there is no allowed-tools line, so your agent's usual permission prompts apply.

    From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

  • Runs code

    No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md.

    From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

  • Network

    No URLs in SKILL.md.

    From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

  • Credentials

    Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

    From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Restat Referee Strategy loads about 1.3k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 78 tokens; SKILL.md has 596 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it
~78
When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches
~1.3k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

Auto-check passed

The automated check found no risky patterns in SKILL.md.

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills at commit 932eb23, republished under its MIT licence (© brycewang-stanford). 596 words, ~1,315 tokens.

Download SKILL.mdSave it as .claude/skills/restat-referee-strategy/SKILL.md (or your agent's skills folder).
name
restat-referee-strategy
description
Use when anticipating the objections a The Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat) referee will raise for a given design, and pre-empting them in the manuscript before submission. Maps threats to defenses; it does not draft the post-decision response letter (that is restat-rebuttal).

Referee Strategy (restat-referee-strategy)

When to trigger

  • The design is settled and you want to pre-empt the obvious referee objections
  • You need to decide which robustness checks belong in the paper vs the online appendix
  • You want to write the intro/robustness so a referee's first question is already answered
  • Before submission, to stress-test the manuscript against a REStat referee's mindset

The REStat referee mindset

REStat referees are applied economists who attack identification and measurement first. They ask: Is the design actually clean? Is everything measured well enough to support the claim? Would the result survive the specification I would run? Does the conclusion exceed the evidence? Because REStat publishes across many applied fields, expect a referee who knows your subfield's data quirks intimately. The winning manuscript answers the top objection inside the paper — one paragraph plus one exhibit — before the referee can raise it.

Threat → pre-emption map by design

DesignThe objection a REStat referee raises firstPre-empt with
DID (staggered)"TWFE is biased with heterogeneous timing"Het-robust estimator (CS / Sun–Abraham) + flat event-study + Bacon decomp
DID (any)"Pre-trends / parallel trends fails"Pre-trend tests + honest-DID bounds (Rambachan–Roth)
RD"The running variable is manipulated"Density test (CJM) + covariate smoothness + bandwidth sensitivity
IV"Exclusion restriction is violated / instrument is weak"Institutional + falsification defense of exclusion; effective-F; AR weak-IV sets
Shift-share"Shares/shocks are endogenous"GPSS share-exogeneity or BHJ shock-exogeneity argument + implied estimates
Any"Your key variable is measured with error"Validation sample / attenuation correction / bounds (REStat-signature)
Any"Inference ignores clustering / few clusters / many tests"Right clustering + wild-cluster bootstrap + MHT correction
Any"The conclusion overreaches the estimate"State the estimand and scope; bound external-validity claims

Strategy moves

  1. Rank the threats. List the 4–6 objections this design invites, hardest first.
  2. Answer the top one in the main text — one paragraph + one exhibit — so the referee sees it pre-empted.
  3. Budget the rest between main text and online appendix; signal in the text where the appendix answers a concern.
  4. Pre-write the hard concession. Where the design is genuinely limited, state the limit and bound it — this buys referee trust.
  5. Match exhibits to threats (hand to restat-robustness for the suite, restat-tables-figures for presentation).
Show full SKILL.md (238 more words)Show less

Checklist

  • Top 4–6 objections for THIS design listed, hardest first
  • The single hardest objection is answered in the main text (paragraph + exhibit)
  • Measurement-error objection explicitly addressed (REStat referees raise it)
  • Inference objection pre-empted (clustering / few-cluster / MHT)
  • Scope/external-validity bounded so "overreach" cannot be the easy rejection
  • Remaining checks budgeted between main text and online appendix with signposts

Anti-patterns

  • Hiding the obvious objection and hoping the referee misses it (they will not)
  • Burying the answer to the top objection in a footnote or deep appendix
  • A defensive tone that argues instead of demonstrating with an exhibit
  • Ignoring measurement quality because the identification looks clean
  • Overclaiming generality, handing the referee the easiest possible rejection

Worked vignette: pre-empting the measurement objection (illustrative)

A trade paper uses a shift-share instrument and the author is braced for the usual exogeneity questions. But the first objection a REStat referee raises is about measurement: the industry-share weights are built from a base-year census the referee believes is mismeasured for small sectors. Anticipating this, the author adds, in the main text, a one-paragraph defense plus one exhibit — re-estimating with shares from an independent survey and showing the estimate barely moves — before any referee sees the paper. The exogeneity question (shares vs shocks, BHJ) is handled in a second paragraph. By pre-empting the measurement objection, not just the identification one, the author removes the easiest path to a critical report — the REStat-specific move siblings often miss.

Output format

【Design】[DID / RD / IV / shift-share / measurement]
【Top objections (ranked)】1:[...] 2:[...] 3:[...] (4–6)
【Hardest answered in main text?】paragraph + exhibit? [Y/N]
【Measurement objection addressed?】[Y/N]
【Inference objection pre-empted?】[Y/N]
【Scope bounded?】external-validity claim limited? [Y/N]
【Main vs appendix budget】main: [...]; appendix: [...]
【Next step】restat-submission

© brycewang-stanford, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

Just SKILL.md in Review-of-Economics-and-Statistics-Skills/skills/restat-referee-strategy of brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills.

Open the folder on GitHubat commit 932eb23

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Questions about Restat Referee Strategy

What does Restat Referee Strategy do?

A skill your agent uses when anticipating the objections a The Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat) referee will raise for a given design, and pre-empting them in the manuscript before…. Restat Referee Strategy is an agent skill from brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills. Use when anticipating the objections a The Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat) referee will raise for a given design, and pre-empting them in the manuscript before submission.

When should I use Restat Referee Strategy?

Restat Referee Strategy fits situations like: anticipating the objections a The Review of Economics and Statistics (REStat) referee will raise for a given design; pre-empting them in the manuscript before submission.

How do I install Restat Referee Strategy in Claude Code?

Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill restat-referee-strategy -a claude-code`. Or copy the skill folder (Review-of-Economics-and-Statistics-Skills/skills/restat-referee-strategy in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) into .claude/skills/restat-referee-strategy in your project. Claude Code loads it when a task matches its description.

How do I install Restat Referee Strategy in Codex?

Run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill restat-referee-strategy -a codex`. Or copy the skill folder (Review-of-Economics-and-Statistics-Skills/skills/restat-referee-strategy in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) into .agents/skills/restat-referee-strategy in your project. Codex loads it when a task matches its description.

Can I use Restat Referee Strategy in Cursor, Gemini CLI or GitHub Copilot?

Cursor, Gemini CLI, GitHub Copilot and OpenCode also load SKILL.md folders. With the skills CLI, run `npx skills add brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills --skill restat-referee-strategy -a cursor` (or -a gemini-cli, github-copilot or opencode for the others). To copy it by hand, put the folder in .cursor/skills/restat-referee-strategy, .gemini/skills/restat-referee-strategy, .github/skills/restat-referee-strategy and .opencode/skills/restat-referee-strategy in your project.

What does Restat Referee Strategy need to run?

SKILL.md names no scripts, command-line tools or credentials: Restat Referee Strategy is instructions for the agent only.

Does Restat Referee Strategy access the network?

SKILL.md contains no URLs. Any network use would come from the scripts or tools the agent runs. This is read from the text; nothing was executed.

Is Restat Referee Strategy safe to install?

Our automated static check of SKILL.md found no risky patterns, such as piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files or hidden Unicode. It is not a guarantee. Review the folder before installing.

What licence does Restat Referee Strategy use?

Restat Referee Strategy is published under the MIT licence (the repository's licence). It allows redistribution, so the full SKILL.md is shown on this page.

How many tokens does Restat Referee Strategy use?

About 1.3k tokens (SKILL.md is roughly 5.3k characters). Agents keep only the skill's name and description in context until a task matches; then they load SKILL.md in full.

What are the alternatives to Restat Referee Strategy?

Skills that share tags, products or a category with Restat Referee Strategy: Manuscript Statistics Audit (Yuan1z0825/nature-skills, 47k stars), Jbes Review Process (franklee16/academic-research-skills, 223 stars), Peer Review (K-Dense-AI/claude-scientific-writer, 2.4k stars) and JS Perf Investigation (SAP/project-foxhound, 180 stars). The comparison table on this page puts their stars, adoption, token cost, safety result and licence side by side.

Who maintains Restat Referee Strategy?

brycewang-stanford (a GitHub user) maintains it in brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills, which has 1,231 GitHub stars. The repository holds 2,387 skills in this directory. The repository was last updated on September 27, 2026.

Source: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills on GitHub. Facts on this page come from the repository at the commit we read; the author's words are quoted as theirs.