Journal of Economic Theory Response to Reviewers: How to Write a Rebuttal That Survives the Rigor Bar (2026)
How to write a point-by-point response to reviewers for the Journal of Economic Theory, where a proof gap must be closed with a complete corrected proof and the economic interpretation matters as much as the math.
Readiness scan
Find out if this manuscript is ready to submit.
Run the Free Readiness Scan before you submit. Catch the issues editors reject on first read.
How to use this page well
These pages work best when they behave like tools, not essays. Use the quick structure first, then apply it to the exact journal and manuscript situation.
Question | What to do |
|---|---|
Use this page for | Building a point-by-point response that is easy for reviewers and editors to trust. |
Start with | State the reviewer concern clearly, then pair each response with the exact evidence or revision. |
Common mistake | Sounding defensive or abstract instead of specific about what changed. |
Best next step | Turn the response into a visible checklist or matrix before you finalize the letter. |
Quick answer: A Journal of Economic Theory response to reviewers is a point-by-point rebuttal built around the rigor bar, written as two Elsevier documents: a short letter to the associate editor summarizing the major revisions, then a per-referee response. For every change, the page and line number in the revised manuscript must specify exactly where the edit lives, alongside the equation, lemma, or proposition number.
The binding constraint is technical: if a referee found a proof gap, you supply the complete corrected proof, not a sketch, and you sharpen the economic interpretation the referee asked for rather than only the math.
Start with the Journal of Economic Theory submission readiness check before you resubmit, or work through this guide by hand. For broader cluster context, see the Journal of Economic Theory journal overview.
What does a Journal of Economic Theory response to reviewers require?
The Manusights JET rebuttal scan. This guide tells you what the associate editor and the referees look for in a Journal of Economic Theory rebuttal. The scan tells you whether YOUR response letter passes that check before you upload it to Elsevier's Editorial Manager. We have reviewed economic-theory manuscripts and revise-and-resubmit packages targeting JET and peer theory venues, and the proof-gap and economic-interpretation patterns below are the same ones theory referees flag at re-review. Your proofs and unpublished results stay private: we never use your manuscript to train AI, and we delete it within 24 hours.
Three things make a JET rebuttal different from a generic one:
- The rigor bar is binding. A theory referee who finds a gap in a proof, an implicit assumption, or a comparative-static that does not actually follow holds the revision until the hole is closed with a complete corrected proof, not a sketch.
- The economics is graded too. The journal expects the economic interpretation sharpened on revision, not only the mathematics. The main theorem has to read as an economics result.
- The decision runs through an associate editor. That editor assigns and weighs the referees and writes the recommendation, so your letter to the associate editor carries the decision as much as the per-referee replies.
One more clock fact shapes the work: JET strives to respond in roughly four months, and a theory revision often runs more than one cycle.
How we verified this guide
We read JET's Elsevier editorial information and author guidance, then checked it against published economics-refereeing canon and the revise-and-resubmit norms at sister Elsevier economics journals. We compared all of it to our own pre-submission reviews of theory rebuttals. Every claim below traces to a primary source or our review corpus.
Element | What the Journal of Economic Theory expects | What referees flag at re-review |
|---|---|---|
Structure | Letter to associate editor, then point-by-point per referee | Free-form prose answering all comments together |
Proofs | Complete corrected proof for every gap a referee found | A proof sketch or "the argument extends" with no full proof |
Specificity | Page, equation, lemma, or proposition number per change | "We have revised the appendix" with no location |
Economic content | Sharpened economic interpretation, not only math | Tighter algebra, same opaque economic meaning |
Scope of claims | Generality matched to what the result actually supports | Added generality the proof does not deliver |
Tone | Substantive on the theory, gracious on style | Defensive on a referee's request for interpretation |
Source: Journal of Economic Theory Elsevier editorial information and economics-refereeing canon, accessed June 2026.
The copyable Journal of Economic Theory rebuttal template
Referees at JET re-read your appendix line by line, so a clean, scannable structure that points straight to the closed gap is doing real work. Copy this skeleton, then replace the bracketed text with your own changes. Keep the referee text and your reply in two distinct fonts or colors.
Dear Associate Editor,
Thank you for the opportunity to revise our manuscript the manuscript title
(JET-[ID]). We are grateful to the referees for their careful
reports. In response, we have closed the gap in the proof of
Proposition [N], added the missing assumption to the model, and
rewritten the introduction to state the economic contribution
explicitly. A point-by-point response follows; referee comments are
in bold and our replies in plain text, with revised-manuscript page,
equation, lemma, and proposition numbers given for every change.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Referee 1
Comment 1.1: "The proof of Proposition 2 assumes the value function
is differentiable, but this is not established."
Response: We agree. We have added Lemma 1, which establishes
differentiability under Assumption [A], and revised the proof of
Proposition 2 to invoke it. The complete corrected proof appears on
page 9, lines 4 to 27, and the new lemma on page 8.
Comment 1.2: "The economic meaning of the equilibrium condition in
equation (7) is not discussed."
Response: We have added a paragraph interpreting equation (7) as a
no-arbitrage condition on [object], with the economic intuition
stated in plain terms. See page 5, lines 11 to 19.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Referee 2
Comment 2.1: "The result is stated for two agents; does it extend to
N agents?"
Response: It does, under the additional assumption [A']. We have
added the N-agent statement as Proposition 3 and its complete proof
in Appendix B, page 24. We have NOT claimed the extension where it
does not hold (the [counterexample] case), which we now flag in
Remark 2.
----------------------------------------------------------------
Referee 3
Comment 3.1: "The relationship to [closest theoretical alternative]
is unclear."
Response: We have added a paragraph in the introduction
distinguishing our mechanism from [alternative], and a Remark
showing our result nests theirs as a special case. See page 3,
lines 6 to 14.
We believe the revised manuscript now closes each technical gap and
states the economic contribution clearly, and we look forward to
your recommendation.
Sincerely,
[Corresponding author, on behalf of all authors]The template carries the four tokens referees actually scan for: a letter to the associate editor, a Referee 1 / 2 / 3 structure, explicit action language ("we have closed", "we have added", "we have revised"), and a page, equation, or proposition reference for every change.
The page-and-location rule: cite where every change lives
State the exact page and line number for each manuscript revision, and reference the specific equation, lemma, proposition, or appendix you changed. At JET, where the corrected step is a piece of mathematics a theorist will re-derive, this is the most-cited rebuttal failure we see.
The asymmetry is sharp. A referee who has to hunt through a 30-page appendix for your corrected proof reads the omission as evasion. A referee who can jump straight to page 9, lines 4 to 27, see the new Lemma 1 closing the differentiability gap, and verify it finishes faster and re-reviews more favorably.
Two rules keep your locations honest:
- Never write "we have revised the appendix accordingly" without a location.
- Use the numbering from the revised file, not the original, and say explicitly when a proof now lives in a renamed or renumbered result.
Referee-text vs author-response typography
Make the referee's words and your reply visually distinct. Put each referee comment in bold or a colored text box, and keep your response in plain regular text directly beneath it.
The associate editor and three referees scan dozens of these letters. A rebuttal where comment and reply blur together costs you the attention you need to show a proof gap is genuinely closed.
At JET specifically, the layout is not cosmetic. The associate editor reads your response first to decide whether to send it back to the referees at all. A two-font or two-color layout is the difference between a letter that editor can verify fast and one they bounce for clarity.
Tone calibration: how to phrase the hard replies
The associate editor sees your tone across every comment and weighs whether you engaged with the technical objection or deflected it. A defensive reply to a proof challenge reads worse than the gap itself. Calibrate.
Bad (defensive or vague) | Better (substantive and rigorous) |
|---|---|
"The referee has misunderstood the proof." | "We did not state the step clearly; we have added Lemma 1 on page 8 and rewritten the proof of Proposition 2 to make the argument explicit." |
"The differentiability is standard." | "The referee is right that we assumed it implicitly. We now establish differentiability in Lemma 1 under Assumption A." |
"We have addressed this concern." | "We have closed the gap with the complete corrected proof on page 9, lines 4 to 27." |
"The result obviously extends to N agents." | "The extension holds under Assumption A'; we add it as Proposition 3 with full proof, and flag the case where it fails in Remark 2." |
"The economic interpretation is clear from the model." | "We agree the economic meaning was buried. We now interpret equation (7) as a no-arbitrage condition on page 5." |
The pattern that works: concede where the referee is right, supply the complete corrected proof, point to the exact result number, and push back only on a request the theory genuinely does not support, with a reason and a counterexample.
The Journal of Economic Theory reviewer culture you are writing into
JET is published by Elsevier and runs an associate-editor model, with all submissions and revisions handled through its Editorial Manager submission portal. A co-editor assigns your paper to an associate editor, who selects the referees, reads their reports, and writes the recommendation that drives the decision.
Your response is read first by that associate editor, who is weighing two things at once: did you close the technical gaps, and is the economic contribution now legible. Only then does the package go back to the original referees for re-review.
The implication for how you write is direct. The letter to the associate editor is not a formality. It is the document that decides whether your revision gets a real second read or a fast desk-level decline.
The two bars: proof rigor and economic interpretation
The defining feature of the culture is the methodological rigor bar. JET is the most general-interest of the journals specializing in economic theory, and its referees are theorists who will re-derive your central results. A revision that answers a proof challenge with "the argument extends by standard methods" does not clear the bar; the complete corrected proof does.
The appendix carries that weight. Definitions must be stated, assumptions must be explicit, and the proof appendix must read without the referee inferring a missing step. This is the white-space that separates a JET rebuttal from one at an empirical journal, where the binding constraint is identification rather than a closed proof.
The second axis is economic interpretation. Referees at JET routinely flag a paper whose mathematics is clean but whose economics is opaque, and the revision request is to make the main theorem read as an economics result, not only a mathematical one. A rebuttal that tightens the algebra while leaving the equilibrium condition uninterpreted misses what the referee actually asked for. The strongest JET revisions add a sentence of plain economic meaning next to every formal object the referee questioned.
Where JET sits among theory venues
How this compares to the rest of the field matters for calibration. The referee culture you are writing into shifts venue by venue:
- Theoretical Economics, the open-access society journal of the Society for Economic Theory, holds a comparable rigor bar and is often considered equally or more selective, so a referee report reads similarly.
- Econometrica puts theory and methods alongside econometric contributions, and the general-interest bar is higher still.
- Games and Economic Behavior serves a narrower game-theory audience, and a referee may accept a result JET would route to a more general venue.
- A general-interest flagship like the American Economic Review or the Journal of Political Economy lets the economic-significance bar dominate, and a pure technical advance struggles.
JET sits at the rigorous-but-broad center: full proofs, sharpened economic meaning, and a contribution wide enough that it is not better placed at GEB or TE.
Key Insight
At the Journal of Economic Theory, the associate editor reads your response before the referees do, and decides whether you closed the proof gaps. Write the letter to the associate editor as the document that earns your revision a second read, not as a cover note.
What our Journal of Economic Theory rebuttal reviews surface
In our pre-submission review work with Journal of Economic Theory manuscripts, we observe that the rebuttals which stall in a second revision round share a small set of recurring weaknesses. JET referees specifically ask for a closed proof and a sharpened economic reading, and each weakness below maps to a specific, named failure pattern in the JET editorial culture, testable against your own draft response before you upload it to Editorial Manager.
Responding to a proof gap with a sketch instead of a complete corrected proof. The most common and most expensive pattern in our Journal of Economic Theory pre-submission reviews is a rebuttal that answers a referee who found a hole in the proof of a proposition with "the argument extends by standard methods" or a two-line sketch. A theory referee will re-derive the step, find it still open, and recommend against.
The fix is the complete corrected proof, stated as a new lemma or a rewritten appendix with explicit assumptions, located by page and line. Across our JET rebuttal reviews, an unclosed proof gap is the single strongest predictor of a rejection on revision.
Adding generality the result does not actually support. The second pattern we flag in our Journal of Economic Theory reviews is an author who, asked whether a two-agent result extends to N agents, claims the extension without supplying the proof or the assumption that makes it hold. Referees catch this immediately, because the missing case is usually the interesting one.
The disciplined move is to prove the extension where it holds, add the additional assumption explicitly, and flag the boundary case with a counterexample in a Remark rather than overclaiming. Overstated generality reads as a rigor failure even when the core theorem is correct.
Missing the economic interpretation the referee asked for. In our pre-submission reviews of Journal of Economic Theory manuscripts, a recurring rebuttal weakness is answering a request to interpret an equilibrium condition or an equation by tightening the math and leaving the economics opaque. The referee asked what the condition means economically, and the revision returned cleaner algebra. JET expects the main result to read as an economics contribution; a revision that sharpens the formalism without sharpening the meaning has not addressed the comment.
Treating the associate editor's letter as a formality. Because the associate editor weighs your response before the referees re-review it, a rebuttal that buries the major revisions in the per-referee replies and gives the editor a one-line cover note loses the document that actually carries the decision.
In our Journal of Economic Theory pre-submission reviews, the rebuttals that move fastest open the associate-editor letter with three to six concrete items naming the closed proof gaps and the sharpened economic interpretation, each pointing to a page and a result number.
Close the proof gap, match generality to the proof, interpret the economics, and write the associate-editor letter as the decision document. That four-part discipline is what separates a Journal of Economic Theory rebuttal that clears one revision round from one that stalls into a second or a rejection. Check your Journal of Economic Theory point-by-point response for these patterns before you resubmit.
Readiness check
Run the scan to see how your manuscript scores on these criteria.
See score, top issues, and what to fix before you submit.
When to comply and when to push back
Situation | Recommended approach at the Journal of Economic Theory |
|---|---|
Referee found a gap in a proof | Comply. Supply the complete corrected proof as a new lemma or rewritten appendix, located by page. |
Referee asks whether the result extends to N agents | Prove it where it holds; add the assumption; flag the failing case with a counterexample. Do not overclaim. |
Referee asks for the economic interpretation of a formal object | Comply. Add a sentence of plain economic meaning next to the equation or condition. |
Referee requests a generalization the theory does not support | Push back with a counterexample, explain the boundary, and state the result at the level it actually holds. |
Referee and associate editor prioritize different changes | Resolve explicitly in the associate-editor letter; do the change the associate editor weighted; explain the reconciliation. |
Referee questions an implicit assumption | Comply. State the assumption explicitly in the model and check the proof still goes through. |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of Journal of Economic Theory-targeted resubmissions, 2025 cohort.
How much work a Journal of Economic Theory rebuttal actually takes
Authors consistently underestimate the proof-closing effort and overestimate the writing effort. This breakdown is about workload, not the journal's decision clock; for the end-to-end schedule, see the Journal of Economic Theory submission guide.
Rebuttal task | Where the effort goes | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|
Re-reading the referee reports for the core technical objection | Finding the one open proof or assumption behind the comments | A day of careful reading, not a skim |
Closing the proof gap | Deriving the complete corrected proof, often a new lemma | The bulk of the work, sometimes weeks |
Sharpening the economic interpretation | Stating the meaning of each formal object the referee questioned | Less than authors fear once the result is understood |
Matching generality to the proof | Proving extensions where they hold, flagging where they fail | Skipped most often, and referees catch it |
Writing the associate-editor letter | Three to six items naming the closed gaps and sharpened economics | One careful pass; it carries the decision |
Source: Manusights pre-submission reviews of Journal of Economic Theory resubmissions, 2025 cohort, last updated June 7, 2026.
Where authors misjudge the effort
The proof-closing work is the bulk of a JET revision and can run weeks; the writing is the part authors fear and the part that costs least once the corrected proof exists. Budget the algebra, not the prose.
Honest friction: rejection on revision is real at JET
A revise and resubmit at the Journal of Economic Theory is not a soft acceptance. The revised manuscript and your point-by-point response return to the associate editor and the original referees, and the paper can still end in rejection after re-review.
Three things reopen the decision: a proof gap still open, added generality that is not actually supported, or the economic interpretation the referee asked for still missing. Theory revisions commonly run more than one round. Most rejections at this stage trace to one cause: the author answered a proof challenge with a sketch instead of the complete corrected proof. The second most common is overstated generality the appendix does not deliver.
Think twice before you resubmit if any of these are true:
- A referee found a gap in a proof and your reply is a sketch or "the argument extends" with no full proof.
- You claimed an extension to N agents or to a weaker assumption without adding the proof.
- A referee asked what an equilibrium condition means economically and the revision only tightened the algebra.
- The associate-editor letter is a one-line cover note that does not name the technical changes.
Fixing these before resubmission is what keeps a second round from becoming a rejection.
Red flags a Journal of Economic Theory referee spots in seconds
Before you upload, scan your own rebuttal for the patterns that draw an immediate negative re-review. Each is a specific, checkable thing in your draft, not a vague quality dimension.
- A proof gap closed with a sketch. Any "the argument extends by standard methods" where the referee asked for a full proof reads as an unclosed hole the moment a theorist re-derives the step.
- Overstated generality. A claimed N-agent extension with no proof and no added assumption signals you did not check the boundary case, which is usually the interesting one.
- Opaque economics after a meaning request. A referee asked what an equation means and the reply gives cleaner algebra;
the economic interpretation is still missing.
- A one-line associate-editor letter. Burying the major revisions in the per-referee replies and giving the associate editor a cover note wastes the document that carries the decision.
How does this guide go beyond the Journal of Economic Theory author guidelines?
The Elsevier author information tells you to submit a point-by-point response and to upload a revised manuscript through Editorial Manager. It does not tell you the four facts that change how you write every reply:
- The rigor bar is binding, not aspirational.
- The associate editor reads your response before the referees do.
- A proof gap must be closed with a complete corrected proof, not a sketch.
- The economic interpretation is graded as hard as the mathematics.
The patterns above come from our pre-submission reviews of economic-theory rebuttals, and they are testable against your own draft today, not theoretical concerns.
- Manusights pre-submission reviews of Journal of Economic Theory-targeted manuscripts (2025 cohort)
Frequently asked questions
Write two documents in Elsevier's Editorial Manager: a short response to the associate editor that lists the major revisions, then a point-by-point response to referees. Quote each referee comment in full, state the exact change, and reference the page, equation, lemma, or proposition number in the revised manuscript. Keep referee text and your reply in two visually distinct fonts or colors so the associate editor can scan the closed proof gaps fast.
For a revise and resubmit, the rigor bar is the binding constraint. If a referee found a gap in a proof, you must supply the complete corrected proof, not a sketch or a promise. Definitions, assumptions, and the proof appendix must read without inferred steps. The associate editor and referees also expect the economic interpretation to be sharpened, not only the mathematics. JET strives to respond in about four months per round.
JET is published by Elsevier and runs an associate-editor model. A co-editor assigns your paper to an associate editor who handles the referees and writes the recommendation. Your response is read first by that associate editor, who weighs whether you closed the technical gaps and whether the economic contribution is now clear, then by the original referees on re-review.
Yes. A revise and resubmit is not an acceptance. The revised manuscript and your point-by-point response return to the associate editor and the original referees, and the paper can be rejected if a proof gap is still open, if added generality is not actually supported, or if the economic interpretation the referee asked for is still missing. Theory revisions commonly run more than one round before acceptance.
Resolve the conflict explicitly. State in the response to the associate editor how you reconciled the two requests, do the change the associate editor prioritized, and explain in the referee response why you weighted it that way. The associate editor writes the recommendation, so a clean, reasoned reconciliation in that letter carries the decision.
Sources
- Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier (ScienceDirect) (accessed June 2026)
- Journal of Economic Theory, Wikipedia (accessed June 2026)
- Revise and resubmit guidance, Journal of Monetary Economics (Elsevier) (accessed June 2026)
- Ten simple rules for writing a response to reviewers, William Stafford Noble, PLOS Computational Biology (accessed June 2026)
- How to Write an Effective Referee Report, Berk, Harvey, and Hirshleifer, Journal of Economic Perspectives, DOI 10.1257/jep.31.1.231 (accessed June 2026)
- Facts and Myths about Refereeing, Hamermesh, Journal of Economic Perspectives, DOI 10.1257/jep.8.1.153 (accessed June 2026)
Final step
Find out if this manuscript is ready to submit.
Run the Free Readiness Scan. See score, top issues, and journal-fit signals before you submit.
Anthropic Privacy Partner. Zero-retention manuscript processing.
Where to go next
Same journal, next question
Supporting reads
Conversion step
Find out if this manuscript is ready to submit.
Anthropic Privacy Partner. Zero-retention manuscript processing.