This note summarizes key checks when assessing an econometric study and setting up your own specification:

• Identification: clarify causal channel, sources of exogenous variation, and threats to validity (omitted variables, simultaneity, selection).
• Baseline model: motivate functional form; justify fixed effects and clustering choices.
• Robustness: alternative specifications, different samples, flexible trends, placebo tests.
• Measurement: discuss variable construction, outliers/winsorization, leverage points.
• Inference: use heteroskedasticity-robust (or cluster-robust) SEs; be explicit about the clustering level; consider wild bootstrap with few clusters.
• Presentation: report effect sizes with confidence intervals; show event-study graphs for dynamics.

These checks help move beyond significance towards credible and transparent empirical claims.