Where the math is defensible.

What makes a Deluair brief defensible: the methodology bar

Every memo we ship has to clear the same bar a hostile referee at the American Economic Review would apply. The phase-based workflow, the no-mock-data rule, the replication package, the bounds analysis, and the em-dash discipline all serve a single purpose: a brief that survives the most aggressive reading a competent skeptic can give it.

The defensibility of a research brief is not a writing question. It is a workflow question. This essay walks through the six-phase research workflow that governs every Deluair engagement (planning, data, estimation, writing, audit, submission), the first-principles discipline that anchors design choices in economic logic rather than conve...