Ectj Contribution Framing

---
name: ectj-contribution-framing
description: Use when sharpening an EctJ contribution into a compact leading-case claim with applied value, rather than a generic econometrics-methods contribution.
---

# EctJ Contribution Framing

Use this after the method and application are known but before final writing. EctJ seeks
original contributions of direct or potential value in applications, and explicitly favors
path-breaking, leading-case work over exhaustive treatment. Because the Editor-in-Chief
screens conforming papers within about one week and desk-rejects with little comment, the
contribution must be legible fast: the summary (no more than 150 words) and opening pages
have to make the advance and its applied payoff obvious on a single read.

## Framing checks

- Lead with the econometric problem and why existing methods fail in an applied setting.
- State the leading-case advance: new identification logic, estimator, test, approximation,
  inference method, or computation.
- Explain what applied researchers can now do that they could not do cleanly before.
- Keep claims proportional to the paper's scope; do not market a narrow special case as a
  complete framework.
- Make the empirical application more than an illustration: it should reveal practical value.

## Output format

```text
[Contribution sentence] <one EctJ-ready sentence>
[Applied-value sentence] <who benefits and how>
[Existing-method gap] <what breaks before this paper>
[Scope guardrail] <what the paper does not claim>
[Intro edit] <paragraph-level fix>
```