american-economic-review
American Economic Review (american-economic-review)
Journal positioning
AER is the flagship general-interest journal of the American Economic Association and one of the economics "top-5" (with QJE, JPE, Econometrica, REStud). It wants papers of broad interest to economists across fields, with a first-order question, a credible answer, and a result that changes how the profession thinks — not an incremental field paper. The audience is the whole discipline, so the contribution must read as important to someone outside your subfield.
A full lifecycle pack for AER ships separately as AER-skills (the aer-* skills). This profile is the quick fit / venue-selection layer; route into aer-workflow for step-by-step drafting and submission.
This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official submission guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the AEA site or the editorial-manager submission system.
When to trigger
- The author names AER (or AER as a stretch target) as the venue.
- A paper has a clean research design and a question of general interest, and the author is choosing between AER and a top field journal.
- A strong field paper needs re-framing so the contribution reads as discipline-wide rather than niche.
- The author needs AER's desk-reject risks and a credible top-5 / top-field alternative list.