Restat referee strategy

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

Design	The objection a REStat referee raises first	Pre-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).

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