AER Paper Body

Overview

The introduction decides whether the editor sends the paper out; the body sections decide what the referees write. Referees live in Data, Empirical Strategy, and Results, checking that the estimand is defined, the assumption stated, the magnitudes interpreted, and the prose matched to the tables. Draft the body before the introduction — the introduction summarizes a paper that already exists, and writing it first produces promises the body fails to keep.

When to Use