Topic Selection — Single-Insight Fit (aeri-topic-selection)

When to trigger

• A project has a strong main result but also two or three secondary results
• Unsure whether to send to AER: Insights, AER, or an AEJ field journal
• The draft is creeping past the word cap because there is more than one idea
• A result feels surprising and clean but you are unsure it is "important enough"

The AER: Insights bar: one idea, AER-level importance, short

AER: Insights publishes short, self-contained papers built around a single important, well-executed idea. The decision is not "is this good?" but "is there exactly ONE crisp, surprising, well-identified insight that can stand alone in a short paper at AER-level importance?" Three filters:

1. Single-insight test. State the paper in one sentence with one headline object (one estimate, one theorem, one fact, one method-changes-the-answer result). If you need "and" to describe the contribution, you likely have an AER paper or two AER: Insights papers, not one.
2. Importance test. The single insight must clear AER-level general interest — a non-specialist economist should care. AER: Insights is short, not minor; a small or incremental result is a reject regardless of length.
3. Self-containment test. The whole argument — setup, identification, headline result, the one or two checks that matter — must fit in ≤7,000 words (minus 200 per exhibit, ≤5 exhibits) with everything else in the online appendix. If the core argument cannot be made short, it is not an AER: Insights paper.

Where it goes if it is NOT AER: Insights

Sharpening a candidate into a single insight

• Pick the headline. Of the results you have, which ONE is most surprising and most cleanly identified? Make that the paper; demote the rest.
• Cut, do not summarize. Secondary results become appendix material or a future paper — not a compressed in-text paragraph.
• Name the surprise. AER: Insights rewards a result that overturns or sharply refines a prior belief; write the prior you are correcting.
• Confirm identification early (aeri-identification) — a clean insight with a shaky design is not publishable short, because there is no room to defend a weak design.

Common AER: Insights archetypes (and what makes each "one insight")

Worked vignette (illustrative)

A fictional project has (a) a clean RCT effect of posted wages on women's applications, (b) a heterogeneity split by occupation, and (c) a structural extension on wage offers. The AER: Insights paper is (a) alone — one surprising, general-interest, cleanly identified effect. (b) and (c) go to the Supplemental Appendix or a separate paper. Compressing all three into one short paper would be a "mini-AER" and likely a reject; the discipline is to make (a) the entire paper and defend it superbly in few pages.

Going-or-not-going decision

If you cannot pass all three filters — single insight, AER-level importance, self-containment — the honest move is to route elsewhere (AER for multi-result, an AEJ for field interest) rather than force-fit. The fast, no-R&R process (aeri-referee-strategy) punishes a borderline fit with a quick reject.

Checklist

• [ ] The paper is stated in one sentence with a single headline object
• [ ] The insight clears AER-level general-interest importance (not just length-appropriate)
• [ ] A clear prior belief is named that the result overturns or sharply refines
• [ ] The full argument plausibly fits the cap with secondary material in the appendix
• [ ] Venue checked vs. AER (multi-result) and AEJ (field) — AER: Insights chosen deliberately
• [ ] Identification is clean enough to defend in a short paper

Anti-patterns

• A "mini-AER": one main result plus several supporting results kept in-text
• A correct but incremental result pitched as short-because-small
• A field-interest result with no general-interest hook
• Splitting one idea across two thin papers, or fusing two ideas into one over-cap paper
• Choosing AER: Insights for speed when the idea genuinely needs AER's length

Output format

【One-sentence insight】<single headline object>
【Importance】why a non-specialist cares (general interest, AER-level)
【Prior overturned】<belief the result corrects>
【Fits short format?】core argument under cap, rest to appendix? [Y/N]
【Venue check】AER: Insights vs AER vs AEJ — chosen because […]
【Next step】aeri-literature-positioning