Expecon workflow

ExpEcon Workflow Router (expecon-workflow)

Overview

This is the router. It tells you which expecon- skill to use at the current stage* of a manuscript aimed at Experimental Economics — the official journal of the Economic Science Association (ESA) and the field's flagship for experimental METHODS in economics: lab experiments, lab-in-the-field, field experiments, market and game experiments, methodology of experimentation, and replications. The journal is defined by method, not topic. A clean public-goods design and a clean matching-market design compete in the same queue; what they share is craft.

Operational tells that you are at Experimental Economics and not a sibling: the journal moved from Springer to Cambridge University Press in January 2025 (Vol. 28), fully open access (CC BY) on behalf of the ESA (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准); submission runs through Editorial Manager (editorialmanager.com/eec) under anonymous (double-blind) refereeing, with two editors approving each accepted paper; participant instructions must be supplied at submission; and two hard gates dominate everything else — real salient incentives and the ESA NO-DECEPTION norm. A study that deceives participants is effectively a desk reject. Default assumption unless the user says otherwise: treat the target as Experimental Economics.

When to trigger

• The user asks "what should I do next?" with an experiment aimed here
• A draft's binding constraint is unclear and is ping-ponging between design, analysis, exhibits, and the letter
• The team is weighing Experimental Economics against JEBO, GEB, AEJ: Micro, or JESA
• A decision letter arrived and the user must switch into revision mode

Routing table

Current symptom	Next skill
Unsure the question is a method-defined fit, or it reads as topic-first	expecon-topic-selection
Contribution vs. the experimental literature is fuzzy or oversold	expecon-literature-positioning
The behavioral/game-theoretic hypotheses being tested are loose	expecon-theory-model
Incentive compatibility, randomization, control, or the no-deception gate is shaky	expecon-identification
Power/MHT/comprehension/order effects/inference are the worry	expecon-robustness
Treatment-effect plots or tables are dense or mis-scaled	expecon-tables-figures
Prose buries the design; intro/abstract do not land	expecon-writing-style
z-Tree/oTree code, instructions, data deposit, or ESA repro prep	expecon-replication-package
Want to anticipate referee objections before submitting	expecon-referee-strategy
Ready to submit via Editorial Manager; need a preflight	expecon-submission
Received an R&R; need a response-letter strategy	expecon-rebuttal

Default order

1. expecon-topic-selection — confirm the method-defined fit and the cleanest treatment contrast
2. expecon-literature-positioning — stake the contribution vs. prior experiments
3. expecon-theory-model — pin the testable behavioral/game-theoretic hypotheses and predictions
4. expecon-identification — incentives, randomization, control, comprehension, no-deception
5. expecon-robustness — power/sample-size justification, MHT, order/learning, pooled-vs-session inference
6. expecon-tables-figures — treatment-comparison exhibits that carry the design
7. expecon-writing-style — make the design land (abstract + intro last)
8. expecon-replication-package — instructions + z-Tree/oTree code + data, ESA-compliant
9. expecon-referee-strategy — anticipate the experimentalist referee
10. expecon-submission — Editorial Manager preflight
11. expecon-rebuttal — after the R&R

expecon-writing-style is late polish; do not rewrite the intro before design and analysis settle. Pre-registration (and any Registered Report intention) is decided at expecon-topic-selection/expecon-identification, never retrofitted.

Anti-patterns

• Treating Experimental Economics like JEBO (broad behavioral, topic-defined, deception sometimes tolerated) — here method and the no-deception gate rule
• Treating it like GEB (a theory home where experiments are illustrative) or AEJ: Micro (where experiments support a broader applied/theory claim)
• Confusing it with JESA, the ESA's other, shorter-format journal — Experimental Economics is the ESA method flagship
• Polishing prose or exhibits while the treatment contrast or power justification is still moving
• Letting an appendix carry the comprehension checks, balance, or instructions the main text must establish

Routing by paper archetype

Archetype	Likely first bottleneck	Enter at
Lab market / game experiment	clean treatment contrast + incentive-compatible payoffs	expecon-identification
Field / lab-in-the-field experiment	randomization integrity + attrition + ecological validity	expecon-identification → expecon-robustness
Methodology-of-experimentation paper	what existing designs get wrong + a demonstration	expecon-topic-selection → expecon-theory-model
Replication / Registered Report	fidelity to original protocol + pre-specified analysis + power	expecon-topic-selection → expecon-robustness

Worked routing example (illustrative)

A user says: "My ultimatum-game variant works, but a referee says the stranger-matching feedback might have misled subjects and the treatment effect could be a power artifact." Two distinct ExpEcon pushbacks — a possible deception concern (false feedback about other players) owned by expecon-identification, and underpowering owned by expecon-robustness. Resolve the deception gate first (it is binary and can sink the paper), then justify the sample (e.g., the design has 80% power to detect a 1.5-token gap at the session-clustered level, illustrative), then return to exhibits and the letter.

Two gates that override the order

Most stages can be revisited out of sequence, but two checks dominate every route and should be confirmed before deep work on any skill:

• No deception — if any procedure deceives participants, no amount of analysis, framing, or robustness rescues the paper. Resolve at expecon-identification first; if it cannot be removed, the design must change.
• Salient real incentives — hypothetical or token stakes are not "incentivized" here. Confirm incentive compatibility for every elicited object before you optimize exhibits or prose.

A third, softer gate — pre-registration / Registered Report intent — is cheap before data collection and impossible to retrofit after. Decide it at expecon-topic-selection. When in doubt about where to enter, check these gates first; they reorder everything else.

Output format

【Target】Experimental Economics (ESA flagship; method-defined)
【Current bottleneck】fit / contribution / hypotheses / design / robustness / exhibits / style / package / submission / revision
【Next skill】<one expecon-* skill>
【Reason】why this is the binding constraint
【Gate check】incentives salient? no deception? instructions ready?
【Source check】official facts verified or marked 检索于 2026-06；以官网为准 / 待核实