By name: rje-rebuttal description: Use when responding to a revise-and-resubmit from The RAND Journal of Economics (RJE) — answering the two anonymous referees and the handling Editor on an industrial-organization manuscript while respecting the hard page caps and RJE house style. Strategy for the response letter; it does not rewrite the article.
R&R Rebuttal Strategy (rje-rebuttal)
When to trigger
- You received an R&R from the RJE handling Editor with two referee reports
- You must reconcile conflicting referee demands without blowing the 50-page cap
- You are drafting the point-by-point response letter
RJE-specific rebuttal posture
RJE decisions come from a handling Editor synthesizing two anonymous referees after an upfront screen, so the Editor's letter is the binding document — prioritize the points the Editor flags, then address each referee. Two structural constraints shape the response:
- Page caps are hard. Main text <=40 pp, total <=50 pp, double-spaced. You usually cannot satisfy every referee by adding material. Move new robustness, derivations, and counterfactuals into the appendix (counts toward the <=10-page appendix+references budget) or, sparingly, into supporting information — but note RJE discourages supporting information and may decline it, so do not park core results there.
- House style persists in the revision. Keep author-date cites with no page numbers, references with no issue numbers, unnumbered subsections, and the usage rules (because/as not since; whereas/although not while; "article" not "paper"). A revision that drifts off style reads as careless.
IO-specific responses referees expect
- Identification / specification. For structural work: justify functional form, instruments for price (cost shifters, BLP/Gandhi–Houde), and the estimator; show the result survives a reasonable alternative specification. For reduced-form: defend the policy/merger variation and report modern-DID or weak-IV-robust diagnostics.
- Counterfactual and welfare claims. IO referees probe out-of-sample counterfactuals hard — bound them and state the maintained assumptions.
- Market definition and external validity. Say what the estimated market teaches beyond itself.
Response-letter mechanics
- One numbered point per referee comment; quote the comment, then the change, then a page/section pointer.
- Lead each reply with the action taken, not justification.
- Where you decline, give a crisp reason and an alternative check — never silence.
- Keep a changes summary at the top for the Editor, organized around the Editor's priorities.
Triage matrix (where each referee ask goes under the page cap)
Sort every comment by where new material can live without breaching the 50-page total.
| Referee ask | Typical response | Where it lands |
|---|---|---|
| Add a robustness specification | Run it, summarize in body, full table to appendix | Appendix (≤10-page budget) |
| Justify an instrument / exclusion | One paragraph of institutional argument + overid check | Main text, tight |
| Add a conduct test | Implement; report verdict in a sentence | Main text; derivation to appendix |
| Bound a counterfactual | Re-report as a range with stated assumptions | Replace the point estimate in place |
| "Estimate an entirely new model" | Push back if out of scope; offer a targeted check | Decline with reason + alternative |
Worked vignette: reconciling two conflicting referees
Suppose Referee 1 wants micro-moments to discipline substitution, Referee 2 wants a simpler demand model, and the Editor flags counterfactual credibility as decisive.
- Lead with the Editor: re-report the counterfactual as a bounded range across both the richer and simpler specifications, showing the welfare conclusion survives the disagreement.
- Referee 1: add the micro-moments; report the resulting elasticity change (illustratively, the cross-elasticity moves from 0.8 to 0.6).
- Referee 2: present the simpler model as a robustness column, not the headline.
- Page budget: the micro-moment derivation and simpler-model table go to the appendix; the body gains only the bounded range.
The contradiction collapses into one robustness exhibit answering the referees' shared worry.
Referee-pushback patterns and the venue fix
- "You added pages instead of answering." Fix: answer in one main-text paragraph plus an appendix pointer; do not inflate past 40 pp.
- "The reply restates rather than tests the result." Fix: lead each reply with the concrete action taken, then the page pointer.
- "The revision drifted off house style." Fix: re-audit author-date cites, unnumbered subsections, and because/whereas/"article" usage before resubmitting.
- "You silently ignored a comment." Fix: never go silent; give a crisp reason to decline, plus a substitute check.
Anti-patterns
- Expanding the main text past 40 pp to appease referees instead of using the appendix
- Dumping core results into discouraged supporting information
- Letting the revision drift off RJE house style
- Treating both referees as equal when the Editor signaled which points are decisive
Output format
【Editor's priorities】[ranked list from the decision letter]
【Referee 1 / Referee 2】[major asks each]
【Page budget】main __/40, total __/50 — within cap? [Y/N]
【Where new material goes】main / appendix / (supporting info, justified)
【Style preserved】author-date no page nos., house usage? [Y/N]
【Next step】rje-submission re-preflight before resubmission