Econometrics Research Paper

Final Project Description

Due Date: 5/9/2021

Purpose:

The purpose of this final project is to give you an opportunity to apply what you learned in this course to a topic you’re interested in. Furthermore, it will give you practical experience doing literature review, data collection, and analysis without the guided structure of exam or homework questions.

Skills/Knowledge:

This Project will help you develop the following skills/knowledge which will help you in grad school/in the work place:

· Provide you with first hand experience in data collection.

· The ability to come up with your own formal hypotheses for analysis.

· Learn how to clean data ahead of regression analysis.

· Improve your ability to judge regression outputs, knowing what follow-up tests need to be run.

· Be able to accurately summarize and present your own research.

Tasks:

You need to complete the following steps in order to complete the project:

1. Collect and clean your data.

· Be sure to include all the variables in your original model.

· Denote where you found every part of your data set, so you can properly cite the original source, and be able to return to it if you need to collect additional data.

· Clean your data so it looks like the data sets used in the homework assignments in this course. R needs your data formatted in this way in order to be able to perform regression analysis.

2. Perform your initial analysis.

· Run your initial regression(s).

· Use them to check your initial hypotheses.

· Run various diagnostic tests on your regression as appropriate:

· Tests for heteroskedasticity, the RESET test, joint F-tests, etc…

· Based on your results determine if you need additional data.

· Ex: Key coefficients with the wrong sign implying the need for additional controls to address omitted variable bias. Realize you forgot a variable in your initial data collection etc…

· Run additional regressions as necessary based on the diagnostic tests and your initial results.

· Repeat until you have a model you’re satisfied with.

3. Write your paper. Be sure to follow the grading checklist to ensure you’ve included all the important sections/tables/etc..

Criteria for Success:

Your final project paper should be sure to include all of the following to achieve a high score:

1. An introduction with a clearly stated primary question of interest. If I have to go hunting for your research question, you will lose points. Your introduction should also include the motivation for why this question is interesting, as well as a preview of your results.

2. A literature review that provides an overview of the literature related to your project, an in-depth description of a few papers most related to your topic, and a brief description of how your topic fills a hole in the literature, i.e., how is it unique and novel.

3. A methodology section where you provide a description of the primary regression model you plan to run, summary statistics for the data you’ve used, and the formal hypotheses related to your research question.

4. A results section that includes detailed tables that outline the results of your regression analysis, descriptions of your results, and formal statements of the results of your hypothesis testing. You should also discuss any diagnostic tests you ran, their results, and any follow up regressions based on these tests, if necessary.

5. A Conclusion with clearly restates your primary question of interest, summarizes your findings and discusses avenues for future research/ways this study could have been improved.

6. Finally, be sure to follow the style guide listed below:

· Style Requirements:

i. Double spaced, Times New Roman 12 font, Margins 1 inch on all sides

ii. Chose a citation style, stick with it throughout the body of the paper and the works cited page.

iii. Paper must be clearly written, grammatically correct, and contain logical arguments and observations. No clichés, casual jargon (i.e. don’t say Yeet, Lit, etc…), contractions or abbreviations. Poorly written papers will cost you at least one letter grade.

iv. This is a technical paper, not an opinion piece. Make sure what you’re saying is supported by the results of your study.

v. Do not use any economic terms without defining them. Similarly, be clear with what you’re saying. Avoid sayings such as “too high”, “too many” ect…

vi. Don’t plagiarize. Including quotes or paraphrasing other’s work is fine with clear and appropriate citations.

vii. Your final draft is likely your fourth/fifth version of the paper. Read it and edit it multiple times. Make sure what you wrote is what you meant to say.

There are some example projects available on canvas if you want to see what I believe a quality project looks like. If you have questions about the examples, or anything other part of this project proposal, be sure to reach out to me as sooner as possible so we can address your concerns in advance of the project being due.