Use when judging whether a literature is an Annual Review of Economics (ARE)-scale review topic — mature, important, and genuinely in need of an authoritative, accessible synthesis — and framing the review's animating question. Decides fit; it does not gather the literature (arecon-literature-synthesis).
SkillScore91Maintained
Automatic
◆Research pack
Last verified 8/16/2026
What it changes
Passed 20 of 22 test cases with the skill, and 3 of 22 without it.
Without skill14%
With skill91%
Checks it passed that the model alone missed
Output contains the bracketed tag 【Field】.
Output contains the bracketed tag 【Why now】.
Output contains the bracketed tag 【Verdict】.
and 17 more in the full report
17 fixed3 passed either way2 still failing0 broke
Pass-rate lift
+77 pp
Tokens
+10%
Agent turns
0%
Response time
-40%
Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/16/2026v120 of 22 cases passed with skill
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
See it in action
One of 17 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
1 of 17
Prompt
I'm thinking about putting together a proposal on recent empirical work covering climate risk pricing in municipal bond markets for the Annual Review of Economics. Can you evaluate whether this topic fits the series? Please analyze the field using the four standard fit criteria (maturity, general importance, synthesis necessity, page length feasibility). Also provide the core animating question, why this review is timely right now, what an economist from another subfield gains from reading it, an outline skeleton of 3 to 6 key research threads, the final venue verdict, source verification status, and the next step.
What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked
Without skill
With skill
Output contains the bracketed tag 【Field】.
Missed
Passed
Output contains the bracketed tag 【Four tests】.
Missed
Passed
Output contains the next step pointer → arecon-proposal-framing.
Missed
Passed
case-01 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/16/2026 · answers are capped and redacted
What's inside
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
SKILL.md72 linessingle file
Topic Selection for an ARE Review (arecon-topic-selection)
When to trigger
You have a candidate field and need to know if it is "ARE-shaped"
A topic feels either too narrow (a single-question review) or too sprawling (a whole subfield)
You are deciding between ARE and a sibling outlet (JEL, JEP, a Handbook chapter, a field journal's review section)
The literature is young/fast-moving and you suspect it is not yet ready for an annual-volume review
What ARE is for
ARE is the Annual Reviews economics survey series: a yearly volume of invited, authoritative review articles that are accessible to economists outside the subfield, not only to its specialists. The reader is a competent economist who wants to enter, teach, or locate the open questions of a field they do not currently work in. That reader profile — and the annual-volume cadence — sets the fit bar.
The four ARE-fit tests
A literature belongs in ARE when it passes all four. If it fails one, route accordingly.
Maturity. There is a body of research — multiple research lines, accumulated evidence, recognizable debates — not a handful of recent working papers. A field still being born produces a premature review that dates within a volume cycle. (Fails → too young; wait.)
Broad importance. The questions matter to economists generally, not only to a dozen specialists. ARE explicitly serves adjacent economists; a review that only its own subfield could love is a field-journal review, not an ARE article. (Fails → too niche.)
Need for an accessible synthesis. A newcomer cannot currently get oriented without a guide, and existing entry points (a recent JEL survey, a Handbook chapter) have not already done the job. The value is the accessible map, not the list. (Fails → already synthesized; nothing to add.)
Tractable for ~25–40 pages. ARE reviews are substantial but not Handbook-length (检索于 2026-06；以官网为准). One author/team must read and weigh the relevant literature within that envelope. (Fails → carve a coherent axis, or it is a Handbook chapter.)
An ARE review is organized by a question about the field, not by a topic label. Before approaching the Committee, write one sentence of each:
State-of-knowledge question: "What do we now know about X, and how confident should we be?"
Why now: what makes a synthesis valuable for this volume — a wave of new evidence, a methodological shift, a policy debate, convergence or fracture of findings.
Reader payoff: what an economist from an adjacent field can do after reading (enter the field, teach it, locate the open questions).
Use when judging whether a management/organization literature is an Academy of Management Annals (Annals)-scale review topic — mature, important, fragmented, and integrable into a new framework — rather than a narrow review. Decides fit and frames the review's animating problem; it does not gather the literature (amann-literature-synthesis) or write the proposal (amann-proposal-framing).