Research Paper Proposal
Due at classtime, Wednesday 30 March 2011
The requirements for EC 327 include a brief, concise research paper, on a topic of your choice, which utilises one or more applied econometric techniques. You must make use of a non-trivial cross-section, time series or panel dataset and the appropriate methodologies. The econometric techniques displayed in the paper should go beyond application of an elementary technique such as OLS regression. They may reasonably include a critical comparison of alternative techniques on a particular specification, and/or presentation of a number of alternative specifications against a particular benchmark (such as a set of nested hypotheses). The exposition should build upon established literature in the field. Many successful papers have been those which have critically evaluated a published article and extended its methodology and/or dataset.
The preferred format for the paper is that of a journal article in a high-quality journal. That is, the paper should have an abstract, an introduction stating the question of interest or hypothesis to be tested, a literature review, a section describing the methodology and data, a section presenting and discussing the empirical results, and a conclusion. The grading of the paper will be 1/3 based on the economics of the presentation, 1/3 based on the econometrics, and 1/3 based on the overall quality of the work (well written with clear exposition, good use of tables, graphics, etc.)
Feel free to contact me about any issues of data availability and the appropriate software needed for particular methodologies. We have not yet touched upon many of the techniques that you might choose to use, but I would be glad to give you some pointers on this, or direct you to sources of online data of various sorts. The Libraries' Statistical Data Catalog may also be of use here.
A one-page proposal describing your research project, in sufficient detail to indicate its clear feasibility in the time provided, is due on Wednesday 30 March. Research projects are due at the time of the final exam, which is an absolute deadline. Please take note that no extensions will be granted. You are also required to present a 5-10 minute summary of the paper on one of the last class days: 2, 4 May.