Quoc-Anh (Q.A.) Do

Economist from Hanoi. Interested in history, politics, math, linguistics.

[Paul Novosad @paulnovosad]

Every college syllabus should include these graphs.

Use AI for homework, you will get it done faster and get a higher grade, and then get crushed on the exam.

[Arpit Gupta (in DC Sep-Dec 2026) @arpitrage]

Played around with a skill file, below, which tries to absorb the lessons in the post to make papers more "top 5" worthy.

No idea if this is helpful (and certainly no idea what happens in GE if everyone does this).

---
name: top5-framing
description: Diagnose and raise the general-interest ceiling of an academic economics/finance paper so it reads like a top-5 (or top-3 finance) submission. Use this skill whenever the user asks to review, reframe, or strengthen a paper draft, abstract, introduction, or pitch for a top journal — including requests like "make this more general interest," "why would the JF/QJE care," "punch up my intro," "is this framing ambitious enough," or when evaluating which of several papers/framings has the higher ceiling. Also use when advising on how to position a result relative to competing papers on the same question.
---

# Top-5 Framing

Based on Jason Fletcher's case study ("How to Write a Top 5 Paper," Mentorless Apprentice Substack, July 2026), comparing two contemporaneous NAFTA-mortality papers — his own (landed at Canadian Journal of Economics) vs. Finkelstein–Notowidigdo–Shi (top-5 trajectory, NYT coverage) — which found nearly the same reduced-form result but asked it to do very different amounts of work.

Core insight: **the credibility of the estimate is rarely the binding constraint; the generality of the claim is.** Evidence doesn't announce its own generality — the authors must build the bridge from estimate to larger question, and that bridge-building is intellectual work, not marketing.

## The diagnostic checklist

Run every draft/framing through these six questions. Flag failures explicitly and propose fixes:

1. **The deletion test.** Delete the empirical setting (the policy, the country, the episode) from the paper. Does a question remain? If the paper evaporates, it's a setting paper, not a general-interest paper. Fix: find the puzzle in the literature that the setting adjudicates.
2. **Fact vs. explanation.** Is the contribution a new fact in one setting, or an explanation that travels across settings? Papers that test a mechanism against multiple shocks/episodes (NAFTA + China shock + Great Recession) rank above single-setting facts.
3. **The one-sentence test.** Can a reader *outside the subfield* repeat the central claim in one memorable sentence? "Health costs may reverse the welfare gains from trade" transmits; "X had another cost" does not.
4. **Vertical vs. horizontal structure.** Do later sections *escalate* one argument (each section raising the stakes of the previous), or do they add outcomes and robustness horizontally? Horizontally additive papers get tagged as "just switching the Y variable." More mechanism tables ≠ more generality without a single adjudicating idea.
5. **Canonical-object test.** Does the result interact with an object a large literature treats as central — a welfare calculation, a canonical elasticity, an established puzzle or contradiction? Forcing the estimate into a canonical calculation (even a stylized one, with caveats) is one of the clearest top-5 markers, because it pulls multiple fields into the same conversation.
6. **Boldest responsible claim.** What is the most ambitious interpretation the evidence can responsibly support — and what one additional test would make that interpretation credible? Top-5 intros are extremely bold; the good ones earn it. Push the user toward the earned version, not the stretched one.

## How to apply it

- **When reviewing a draft:** score each of the six explicitly (pass/fail with one line of reasoning), then propose the single highest-leverage restructuring — usually converting horizontal mechanism sections into a vertical escalation, or adding the canonical-object step (welfare/aggregation/counterfactual calculation) that's currently missing.
- **When reframing an abstract/intro:** draft the one-sentence portable claim first, then rebuild the intro as an escalation toward it: puzzle → fact → explanation → cross-setting test → canonical implication.
- **When comparing framings or papers:** the one with the higher general-interest ceiling usually isn't the one with the more credible estimate — it's the one that asks the estimate to do more. Say so plainly.
- **Guard against the failure mode of careful empiricists:** caution about identification is essential, but it becomes an excuse to skip the last stage of intellectual work. Distinguish "the evidence can't bear this claim" (real problem) from "we haven't invested in constructing the bridge" (fixable).
- **Don't confuse framing with overclaiming.** The fix is never to assert generality; it's to add the test, calculation, or cross-setting comparison that *purchases* the generality.

## Quick reference: moves that raise the ceiling

- Locate a contradiction/puzzle in the literature and make your estimate one step in resolving it
- Test the proposed mechanism against at least one other shock or setting
- Convert the headline estimate into a canonical welfare, pricing, or aggregation object — even stylized, with honest caveats
- Rewrite the intro hierarchically: each section raises the stakes of the last
- Compress the contribution into one sentence a non-specialist economist would repeat
- Cut or demote outcome tables that add comprehensiveness without adding generality

[Radek Stefanski @stefanski_radek]

Everyone from Weber to Mokyr puts culture at the center of the rise of the West. But nobody has had a long-run cultural series you could drop into a growth model.

So I built one: LLMs read 23,000 books from the Western canon, scoring what each endorses.

Year 0–1920, one chart:

[Quoc-Anh (Q.A.) Do @doquocanh]

Please help spread the words!

[Quoc-Anh (Q.A.) Do @doquocanh]

This year's Monash Sustainable Development Workshop will be held in Prato, Italy, on 25-26 June, on "Justice and Development.” Keynote speakers are Francois Bourguignon and Francisco Ferreira. Accommodation costs are covered. (https://t.co/BRV4Zku3v8)

[Quoc-Anh (Q.A.) Do @doquocanh]

Submission deadline is 10 April 2026 (https://t.co/hkW67oEZK9).

[Paul Raschky @PaulRaschky]

We are hiring (a bit)! This year we are on the market for multiple positions at the junior and senior market and here is why you should join us (1/n):
https://t.co/KJvhsQWTmQ
https://t.co/pIaen0o74U

[Ivan Werning @IvanWerning]

How Tariffs Affect Trade Deficits...

... a new paper with amazing trade economist Arnaud Costinot.

Many politicians and the general public expect tariffs to reduce imports lower imports and thus work to close a trade deficit.

Economists typically say "not so fast"...

🧵1/n

[Matt Lowe @hmmlowe]

The contact hypothesis is a leading theory in social psychology--the idea is that interpersonal contact between groups, under favorable conditions, reduces prejudice. What do we learn from the new wave of pre-registered contact experiments? 🧵

[Rigissa Megalokonomou @rmegal]

Excited to share this @iza_bonn non-technical article of our recent paper on the impact of disruptive peers, co-authored with @yveszenou1, @SilviaGriseld and @sofoklis_goulas on the impact of disruptive peers!

[alberto bisin @albertobisin]

Beautiful important paper.

But no shattering to no core in my view!

Economics is not built on the (silly, because obviously wrong) presumption of neutrality. It is instead built on the (I believe correct) presumption that its adoption of analytical and statistical analysis i) serves as a straightjacket to limit the political bias of the author(s), ii) makes it easier to other researcher(s) - possibly of different political persuasions - to identify the assumptions responsible for the biased results.

Because of the object of the discipline, the issue is not whether political bias is present, but how much - where (in which subfield) is it more present.

My prior is that political bias will be more present but more hidden in disciplines less adapted to analytical and statistical analyses.

PS The discussion occurring right now on this platform on MMT is strengthening my bias.

[Rigissa Megalokonomou @rmegal]

We are very excited to share our list of great Monash PhD & Post-Doc candidates on the 2024-25 job market. We have a great cohort this year.

List here: https://t.co/eBPRcf26oW

[CESifo @CESifoNetwork]

Astrology and Matrimony: Social Reinforcement of Religious Beliefs on Marriage Matching in Vietnam | Edoardo Ciscato @doquocanh Kieu-Trang Nguyen
#econtwitter
https://t.co/PAUCL6F9jV

[Jūra Liaukonytė @JuraWho]

1/ 🚨 We’ve built an interactive tool that lets you explore the Political Leaning Index for the top 1,000 musical artists in the US!

This index measures the relationship between music streaming patterns across regions and the voting patterns of those regions in the 2020 election

[The Economic Journal @EJ_RES]

Hot off the press! New EJ virtual issue – Religion and Economics – out now. Featuring a foreword by Joint Managing Editor Sascha O. Becker👉https://t.co/3W3huF3S1T
#FreeToView @OUPEconomics @RoyalEconSoc @essobecker

[Quoc-Anh (Q.A.) Do @doquocanh]

@benjaminmarx Yayy! Congratulations!

[Spencer Greenberg 🔍 @SpencrGreenberg]

Does astrology work? We tested the ability of 152 astrologers to see if they could demonstrate genuine astrological skill.

Here is how the study was designed and what we found (including a result that really surprised me):

🧵

[Quoc-Anh (Q.A.) Do @doquocanh]

@ben_golub The IMO usually states explicitly that it's an individual competition, not a team competition :-). Kids win medals, countries don't win the IMO :-).

[Quoc-Anh (Q.A.) Do @doquocanh]

@CNguyenEc @briankturner101 Đỗ Mười as a PM and GS was also supportive of many bold reformist policies. Sadly for him, that part of his career is hard to ever get documented.

[Gabriele Gratton @grattonecon]

✈️ Heading to Adelaide this morning.

Looking forward to seeing @PaulRaschky @KathrynBaragwa @PJosephHealy @rdahis @ashaniamar @etjernst @doquocanh and many others, and present our new paper on "Bad Democracy Traps"!