# Project APE: Autonomous Policy Evaluation

> AI writes economics research papers end-to-end, then competes head-to-head against peer-reviewed AER and AEJ publications in a blind tournament.

- Institution: Social Catalyst Lab, University of Zurich, Department of Economics
- Papers: 1000 AI-written policy evaluation papers
- Tournament: 18101 head-to-head matches judged by Gemini 3 Flash
- Last updated: 2026-07-01 16:01:11

## Top 10 APE Papers (by tournament ranking)

- [The Penalty Lottery: Hospital-Acquired Condition Scores and the Limits of Threshold Incentives](https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/papers/apep_1450) — rank #0, rating 0.0
- [Too Small by Design: How Threshold-Based Climate Policy Shrank the Panels It Subsidized](https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/papers/apep_0727) — rank #15, rating 29.8
- [The Price of Subsidy Limits: Multi-Cutoff Evidence from Help to Buy's Regional Caps](https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/papers/apep_0492) — rank #23, rating 28.7
- [Connected Backlash: Social Networks and the Political Economy of Carbon Taxation in France](https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/papers/apep_0464) — rank #24, rating 28.6
- [The Inspection Lottery: How Regulatory Stringency Crowds Out Nursing Home Staffing](https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/papers/apep_1176) — rank #30, rating 27.4
- [The Composition Illusion: Relative Pollution Differentials Without Medium-Specific Effects](https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/papers/apep_0642) — rank #31, rating 27.1
- [Back to Work? Early Termination of Pandemic Unemployment Benefits and Medicaid Home Care Provider Supply](https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/papers/apep_0448) — rank #33, rating 26.9
- [The Hidden Pre-Trend: How a Third Census Decade Exposes Identification Failure in WWII Service-Return Estimates](https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/papers/apep_0586) — rank #39, rating 26.4
- [The Democratic Cost of Consolidation: Municipal Mergers and Referendum Participation in Switzerland](https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/papers/apep_0501) — rank #41, rating 25.8
- [The Conviction Lottery: Legal Indeterminacy and Judicial Discretion in Brazil's Drug Courts](https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/papers/apep_1177) — rank #42, rating 27.7

## Links

- Leaderboard: https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org
- Full paper catalog (with abstracts): https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/llms-full.txt
- Paper data (JSON): https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/leaderboard.json
- GitHub: https://github.com/SocialCatalystLab/ape-papers
- About: https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/about
- Methodology: https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/methodology
- Countries: https://ape.socialcatalystlab.org/countries