Geb Contribution Framing

---
name: geb-contribution-framing
description: "Use when the \"what does this advance in game theory?\" sentence is missing or muddy for a Games and Economic Behavior (GEB) manuscript. Forges the single-sentence contribution and the introduction's claim structure so the Editor in Charge sees the advance immediately."
category: general-purpose
source_repo: brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills
source_path: "Games-and-Economic-Behavior-Skills/skills/geb-contribution-framing/SKILL.md"
source_url: https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills/blob/HEAD/Games-and-Economic-Behavior-Skills/skills/geb-contribution-framing/SKILL.md
---


# Contribution Framing (geb-contribution-framing)

## When to trigger

- The introduction lists what you did but never states what is *new for game theory*
- A reader finishes the intro unsure whether to be impressed
- The contribution is buried under setup, notation, or related work
- You are about to write the cover letter and need a crisp claim

## Why framing decides the desk screen

At GEB the chief editor routes each paper to one of **seven Editors** as the **Editor in Charge**, who can desk-reject before any referee sees it — about **one-third of submissions are desk-rejected**. That Editor is a game theorist reading many papers; the advance must be unmistakable in the abstract and first page. With only **~15%** of submissions ultimately published, a paper whose contribution is implicit competes poorly against one that states it plainly. Framing is not spin — it is making a real advance legible fast.

## The GEB contribution sentence

Write one sentence of the form:

> "We show that [class of games / setting] admits [result], which [generalizes / overturns / characterizes / mechanizes] [prior understanding], implying [consequence for theory or applications]."

Then test it:

- **Is it about game theory?** The payoff must be to the theory or its methods, not only to an application domain.
- **Is it falsifiable-sized?** A specific theorem/mechanism/finding, not "we study X."
- **Does it name the advance verb?** Generalize, weaken an assumption, characterize, prove impossibility, identify a behavioral mechanism, etc.
- **Would a non-specialist game theorist care?** GEB's audience spans sub-fields and adjacent disciplines.

## Structure the claim cascade

1. **Headline claim** — the one sentence above, early in the intro.
2. **Why it was open** — the obstacle that left this unresolved.
3. **The key idea** — the one move (construction, technique, design, experiment) that cracks it.
4. **Scope of the advance** — how general; what it does and does not cover.
5. **Implications** — for theory, for mechanism design, or for applications (CS/EC, biology, behavior).

## Worked micro-example: sharpening the sentence

- *Before:* "We study auctions with budget-constrained bidders and analyze
  bidder behavior under different formats." — a topic, not an advance; gives
  the Editor in Charge nothing to weigh against the ~15% bar.
- *After:* "We characterize the revenue-maximizing auction under private budget
  constraints, showing the optimum departs from the standard format precisely
  when budgets bind at the reserve — overturning the intuition that budget caps
  merely truncate bids." — class, result type (characterization), departure
  from prior understanding, and consequence, in one evaluable sentence.

## Reuse the sentence across the submission package

The same headline claim should appear, lightly rephrased, in three places GEB
reads in sequence:

1. **Abstract** (within the 250-word cap) — result stated, not just topic.
2. **Cover letter** — the game-theory contribution plus the sub-field, which
   helps the chief editor route the paper to the right one of the seven
   Editors; any conference-version delta belongs in the same paragraph.
3. **Introduction, first page** — the claim cascade above.

If the three versions claim different advances, referees will probe the gap;
reconcile them before submission.

## Anti-patterns

- "We study a model of ..." with no claimed result in the intro
- A contribution that is really an application contribution dressed as theory
- Three competing "main" contributions with no ranking
- Overstating generality the proofs do not support (referees will check)
- Saving the contribution sentence for the conclusion
- A cover-letter claim that promises more than the abstract delivers


## Contribution pass for Games and Economic Behavior

Treat this skill as an executable review pass, not a prose hint. First lock the primitives, equilibrium concept, comparative statics, and proof or experiment boundary; then judge whether the current manuscript answers the venue's real reader: game theorists who ask what the model teaches beyond a clever example.

- **Do the pass:** Translate the result into who learns what, which mechanism changes, and which alternative explanation is ruled out; keep the contribution narrower than the evidence.
- **Return a ledger:** give `claim / evidence / risk / manuscript location` rows, so the next agent can edit rather than rediscover the issue.
- **Sibling guard:** compare against JET for theory abstraction, Theoretical Economics for compact theory contribution, Experimental Economics for experiment-first designs; if a sibling owns the contribution, recommend re-routing before polishing format.
- **Stop condition:** do not give submission-ready advice until the pack's `resources/official-source-map.md` has been checked for volatile rules and the manuscript has one concrete fix for the largest venue-specific risk.

## Output format

```
【Contribution sentence】"We show that ... which ... implying ..."
【Advance verb】generalize / characterize / impossibility / mechanism / behavioral-ID
【Game-theory payoff】explicit? [Y/N]
【Claim cascade】headline / why-open / key idea / scope / implications present? [Y/N each]
【Over-claim flags】[...]
【Next step】geb-identification-strategy
```

---

**Source:** [`brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills`](https://github.com/brycewang-stanford/Awesome-Journal-Skills) → `Games-and-Economic-Behavior-Skills/skills/geb-contribution-framing/SKILL.md`