# Style guide — tables, figures and files (Dufresne lab, v2.3, 2026-09)

These conventions make every student's output machine-readable and comparable across replications. Follow them exactly.

# Files and folders

All deliverables go to out/. Tables in out/tables/, figures in out/figures/, code in out/code/.
Tables are CSV files (UTF-8, comma separator, header row, . as decimal mark, no thousands separators, no currency symbols).
Figures are PNG, at least 1200 px wide, white background, with axis titles and the reference period marked.
Code: every script actually used to produce the deliverables, numbered in execution order (01_clean.py, 02_estimate.py, …). Any language is accepted (Python, R, Stata, Julia) as long as the scripts are in out/code/.

Long format, one row per (variable, group, period). Columns, in this order:

variable,group,period,n_obs,n_firms,mean,sd,min,max

variable ∈ {employment, log_employment, revenue_kcad}
group ∈ {all, treated, control}
period ∈ {pre, post, all} (pre = years before the program start, post = program years)
At minimum, provide employment for every group × {pre, post} combination (6 rows). Add the other variables if useful.
Statistics are computed on the cleaned analysis sample, with mean and sd rounded to 2 decimals.

One row per estimated coefficient of interest. Columns, in this order:

model,term,coefficient,std_error,t_stat,p_value,n_obs,n_firms,n_clusters,firm_fe,year_fe,cluster_var

The main specification uses model = did_twfe and term = treated_post.
firm_fe and year_fe are yes/no. cluster_var is the name of the clustering variable (e.g. region).
Coefficients and standard errors with 4 decimals; n_obs is the number of firm-year observations used by the estimator.
Event-time coefficients may be added as extra rows (model = event_time, term = treated_x_<year>).

x-axis: calendar year (2019–2024); y-axis: coefficient on treated × year (log points), reference year 2021 fixed at 0.
Point estimates with 95 % confidence intervals (clustered standard errors), a horizontal line at 0 and a vertical line between 2021 and 2022 marking the program start.
Title: "Event-time estimates: effect of the wage subsidy on log employment".

Word document, at least 600 words of body text, sections in this order: 1. Research question; 2. Data; 3. Data cleaning (with the count of records affected at each step); 4. Method; 5. Results (quote the ATT, its clustered standard error and N exactly as in Table 2); 6. Reference check (cite each problematic entry by its BibTeX key); 7. Limitations.
Numbers quoted in the text must match the tables to the displayed precision.
Name the author "Research assistant (PSE-2026)" and date the document.