AER Identification

Overview

In AER-track empirical economics, identification is the paper. This skill routes among canonical designs, modern defaults, and referee-facing diagnostics.

If the design is fragile, return to aer-topic-selection; writing cannot save it.

When to Use

• Designing the empirical strategy for a new project
• The current strategy is TWFE / first-stage F / naive RDD and the referee will flag it
• A prior submission was rejected on identification grounds and the design needs rebuilding
• Choosing between two candidate identification strategies for the same question

Master Decision Tree