geb-contribution-framing

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