Trigger Timing
- The empirical body has been written, but readers cannot understand the policy/institutional details
- Reviewers point out that "the institutional background is too thin" or "the policy details are unclear"
- From an overseas reader's perspective, you find that you have not clearly explained what the policy actually is
Why does Management World require an independent institutional background section?
AER / AEJ usually place institutional background in the introduction or footnotes; the editorial board of Management World expects anindependent subsection(about 800–1,500 words), because:
- The readership covers policy researchers and industry researchers; one cannot assume they are familiar with the details
- The policy timeline itself is the foundation of the identification strategy
- This is the first signal by which reviewers judge whether "the research is solid"
Standard Structure (Four-Paragraph Format)
3.1 制度背景
第一段：政策 / 制度的总体情况
- 起源、目标、覆盖范围
- 在中国整体改革脉络中的位置
第二段：政策的关键时间节点
- 试点年份 / 全面推开年份 / 调整年份
- 时间线表格或时间轴图
第三段：政策的关键条款 / 处理机制
- 谁被"处理"、谁是控制组
- 处理强度的可观测变量
第四段：与本文识别策略的衔接
- "正是基于上述政策的[外生性 / 时间错位 / 强度差异]，本文构造……"
Checklist of Key Details
- Is the original policy text given (the "XX Notice" / "XX Measures" number + issuing authority)?
- Is the time gap from "pilot → rollout" explained, along with the source of its exogeneity?
- Are "policy promulgation date / policy implementation date / data observation year" distinguished?
- Has a policy timeline chart or table been created?
With fewer than 3 yeses, the institutional background needs to be rewritten.
Policy Timeline Table Template
| Time | Policy Document | Key Content |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | "Notice of the State Council on XX" | Pilot launched, 6 provinces and 12 cities |
| 2015 | XX Revision Opinions | Expanded nationwide |
| 2018 | XX Implementation Rules | Added a penalty mechanism |
The timeline table is usually the first table in the main text (before the main regression).
Anti-Patterns
- Compressing the institutional background into a single paragraph in the introduction
- Giving only the policy name, without the document number / promulgation date
- Replacing the original policy text with descriptions from overseas literature
- "Pilot selection is exogenous" but without providing empirical evidence / without citing literature
Expectation Table for Institutional Background Review at This Journal
Management World is sponsored by the Development Research Center of the State Council, and most of its editorial board members have backgrounds in policy research and industry research. Their expectations for the institutional background section are far higher than those of purely academic economics journals: it is both the foundation of the identification strategy and the entry point for judging whether "the research serves major national strategies." The table below anchors this journal's review expectations and common rejection patterns (the specific word count and format are subject to the editorial office's latest manuscript guidelines):
| Dimension | This Journal's Expectations | High-Risk Rejection Signals |
|---|---|---|
| Policy Positioning | Place the policy within the context of national strategy (e.g., "dual carbon," "unified national market," "Digital China") | Only describing the policy provisions, without mentioning strategic significance |
| Document Provenance | Give the full document title, document number, issuing authority, and effective date | Writing only the colloquial policy name, with no source in the original text |
| Timeline | The three stages of pilot—rollout—adjustment are clear, with a timeline table/chart | Mentioning in one sentence that "the policy was implemented in recent years" |
| Exogeneity | Using selection mechanism documents to argue that pilot selection is exogenous | "We believe it is exogenous"-style assertions |
Common Rejection Patterns (Institutional Background Dimension)
- Compressing the institutional background into a single paragraph in the introduction, which prevents overseas reviewers from understanding the treatment mechanism.
- Confusing policy time points with data observation years, so readers cannot determine the pre- and post-treatment windows.
- Paraphrasing Chinese policy through secondhand English literature instead of citing the original text of the "XX Notice."
- Lacking a "policy-identification" bridging paragraph, so the institutional background and the empirical analysis are disconnected.
Mini walkthrough example: business environment reform evaluation
Fabricate a manuscript and walk through it according to the four-paragraph structure (numbers are illustrative):
- Paragraph 1 (overall situation): Taking the 2019 Regulations on Optimizing the Business Environment as the institutional starting point, situating it within the national strategic context of "streamlining administration, delegating power, improving regulation, and optimizing services reform" and "building a unified national market," with prefecture-level cities as the coverage scope.
- Paragraph 2 (time points): 2018 pilot in 6 cities (illustrative) → 2020 nationwide rollout → 2022 addition of performance assessment and accountability. Create a timeline table as the first table in the main text.
- Paragraph 3 (treatment mechanism): Measure treatment intensity by changes in the city business environment index; the treatment group consists of cities where reform advanced relatively quickly, and the control group consists of cities where it lagged; emphasize that "pilot selection was based on economic fundamentals rather than firm performance."
- Paragraph 4 (bridging to identification): Write "precisely because of the temporal misalignment and intensity differences in the reform rollout, this paper constructs a continuous-treatment DID..." and connect it to branch A of mw-identification.
- Journal-context check: The business environment corresponds to the national goal of a "market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized business environment" → strategic relevance meets the standard.
Reviewer follow-up question patterns + journal-context revision methods
- Follow-up question: "Were the pilot cities not already better in business environment, constituting selection bias?" → Revision method: cite the pilot selection document to prove that selection was unrelated to firm-level outcomes, and provide an index to the pre-trend balance table at the end of the institutional background.
- Follow-up question: "There are local differences in policy implementation; is the definition of 'treatment' ambiguous?" → Revision method: add observable proxy variables for policy implementation (such as administrative approval time limits and days to start a business) to quantify "treatment intensity."
- Follow-up question: "This policy overlaps with other contemporaneous reforms; how can they be separated?" → In the journal context, the editorial board accepts the approach of "main policy + listing coexisting policies + robustness exclusion," rather than avoiding the overlap problem.
Calibration anchor
In policy evaluation papers already published in this journal, the institutional background is generally a separate subsection (about 800-1,500 characters), including the policy document number, a three-stage timeline table, a definition of the treatment mechanism, and a "policy-identification" bridging paragraph, and the timeline table ranks as the first table in the main text. Whether to require a link to the original policy text, where tables should be placed, and other details are subject to the editorial office's latest manuscript guidelines.
Output format
【章节字数】X 字
【关键时间节点】X 个
【是否有时间线表】是 / 否
【外生性论证】强 / 中 / 弱
【国家战略脉络】已嵌入 / 缺
【下一步】mw-identification