Economics

HMWK 12 (Paper Guidelines)

This assignment builds off of HMWK 10 and HMWK 11. The goal of this assignment is to prepare you to

do a write-up for the analysis of the data from the city you chose to explore in HMWK 11.

While there is considerable flexibility in how you carry out the write-up, I’d like you to focus your efforts

on a specific question and a target audience interested in that question. Your write-up must include at

least two graphs, each of which is well labelled and documented.

Details:

Audience: local city council members

Background: the city council for the city you chose to analyze has approached you to get advice about

which policies they should enact. Policies ranging from education and policing to nutrition and housing

are all under consideration. They are very open to creative solutions and happy to entertain any

suggestions you have. The city council is particularly persuaded by policies that can be supported with

data analysis.

Topic of the Council: the city council is concerned about the well-being of children born to lower income

parents. They want to understand what factors can help children born to low income parents escape

poverty and live well. They are concerned about children of all races, all ethnicities and genders, but

recognize that there might be disparities across these demographic categories.

Necessary Items in your Write-Up:

1. Explanatory prose consisting of at least 1,000 words

2. At least 2 well-labelled figures showing relationships from the atlas data. These figures must

also be documented with a note that explains what the variables in the figure mean, and where

you obtained them.

3. A proposal of at least one policy that the council could enact, which your data analysis suggests

might help improve the well-being of children born to low income parents. Your policy proposal

should, in some way, be supported by the data analysis you provide

Suggestions:

One way to start this project is to look at the kfr_`race’_p25 variables and see which control variables

and which other variables (incarceration, *_p75 variables, etc.) bear a strong relationship to these

variables. Then think about what explanation could account for that relationship. Then, based on that

explanation, think about a policy that might increase upward mobility.

Personal narratives can be relevant, but please keep in mind that your audience is most persuaded by

what can be shown with data.

Excellent write-ups with explore several breakdowns such as those in step 5 of HMWK 10, including but

not limited to, how different factors might affect mobility differently by race and gender.