Economics 8090
Research Methods
David B. Mustard
Fall 2012
Outline of Notes and Reading
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Introduction and Administration
1. Syllabus
2. Personal
Introduction
a. Education-Why
Economics?
b. Research
c. Family
d. Background/Interests
e. Requests
3. Classroom Dynamics
4. Class Website
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1. Introduction
A. Why Economics?
Read
1. Krugman, Paul. 1993. "How I Work." The American Economist. Vol. 37, No. 2 (Fall).
2. Chevalier, Judith. "An Interview with Dr. Judith Chevalier." Interviewed by Caren Grown, International Center for Reserach on Women (ICRW).
Assignment
Write essay #1 explaining your decision to choose your field.
B. What is Economics?
Read
1. Becker, Gary S. "Nobel Lecture:
The Economic Way of Looking at Life," The Journal of Political Economy,
Vol. 101, Issue 3 (June 1993): 383-409.
A. Do economists assume all people
are selfish?
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B. Rationality vs. Incentives - how
can economists possibly believe everyone is rational?
C. What is the role of models?
D. Positive vs. Normative economics
2. Deciding on a Topic and Adviser
Read
Greenlaw, Steven A. Doing Economics. Chapter 2.
A. Deciding on a Topic
1. How did others decide? Krugman, Chevalier, etc.
2. Ideas from class
3. Ideas from workshops and seminars
4. Ideas from professors
5. Ideas from graduate students
B. Deciding on an Advisor
1. Field
2. Activiely Engaged in Research
a. Curriculum
vitae
b. Econlit
c. Cites (SSCI, Google Scholar, Anne Harzing's Publish or Perish)
d. Travel
3. Can the adviser help me get a job?
a. Is he or she willing
to contact people on behalf of his students?
b. Is he or she known/connected
in academia?
1) Travel/Conferences
2) Cites (SSCI, Google Scholar, Anne Harzing's Publish or Perish)
3) Experience
4) Age-retirement
c. Is he or she known/connected
in non-academic arenas?
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3. Does the advisor encourage students to attend and present at conferences?
4. Personal interactions
5. Co-advising
C. Completing the Committee
1. Use same guidelines as above
2. Diversify: Professors should balance Skills and characteristics
a. Field -
Substance
b. Econometrics/Methodology
c. Experience
3. Talk to chair:
Who would
he recommend be on the committee?
Let Chair
know who you are thinking about.
4. Committee size
D. Co-authoring
1. Advisors
2. Students
Assignment
Write essay #2
that presents 5 possible research topics to work on this semester.
Along with this written assignment, you are required to present two
research ideas in class.
3. Completing the Requirements for a Ph.D.
Become familiar with the GC homepage and the Grad School requirements and Graduate School deadlines.
The Graduate School website posts these forms in various places and in
no apparent logical order. The following list provides the forms in
chronological order. Terry College PhD page also contains this information about Grad School requirements.
A. Target Date: Nov. 15 of 3rd year (due to initial meeting of GC with Associate Dean)
1) Advisory Committee for Doctoral Candidates Form
2) Final Doctoral Plan of Study Form
B. Target Date: Spring of 3rd year
1) Oral Comprehensive Examination
2) Thesis proposal
3) Application for Admission to Candidacy
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C. Graduate School continuous enrollment policy
D. Registration: 9000 vs. 9300 (7000 vs. 7300)
E. Target Date: End of 5th year
1) Application for graduation--deadline is typically about 3 weeks into the term.
2) Approval form for doctoral dissertation and final oral examination
3) Electronic thesis and dissertation (ETD) submission approval form
F. What is the optimal time to complete the above steps?
G. Context of job market
Student Presentations of Essay #2
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Student Presentations of Essay #2
Criticisms, comments, suggestions
-------------------------------------- Wed. Sep. 5
Student Presentations of Essay #2
Criticisms, comments, suggestions
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4. Reading
A. References
1. Published Papers
a. EconLit
- Index to published papers
b. JEL contents of JEL from 1994-current
c. JEP contents
of JEP from 1998-current
d. Web
of Science - Can provide forward references through citation
e. JSTOR - provides electronic versions of published articles
2. Unpublished/Working Papers
a. Google Scholar
b. Social
Science Research Network (SSRN) - mostly unpublished working papers
c. National
Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) - high quality working papers
d. Research Papers in Economics (REPEC) - unpublished working papers
e. Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) - unpublished working papers
3. Subscribe to Working Paper Series
4. Posting Papers on Working Paper Series
B. Journal quality and rankings
1. General Interest Journals
2. Field Journals
3. Fields in Economics
5. Writing
Read
Cochrane, John. 2005. "Writing Tips for Ph.D. Students." June 8.
Letter from 101 University of Chicago faculty who oppose the creation of the Milton Friedman Institute. Come to class prepared to discuss the writing in this letter.
Optional Reading
Greenlaw, Steven A. Doing Economics. Chapters 4-5.
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6. Data
Optional Reading
Greenlaw, Steven A. Doing Economics. Chapters 8-9.
A. Guidelines for writing the data section of a paper
1. Write (with replication in mind)
2. Motivate
3. Integrate (with rest of the paper)
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B. Data Disclosure
1. Confidentiality
2. Making data and code publically available
C. Obtaining Data
1. Inter-university
Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) is located at
the University of Michigan and is one of the most comprehensive data sources.
2. Time Series
- Economagic - Has over 100,000
series from governmental and related agencies, and are revised regularly.
3. The
National Longitudinal Surveys
4. The Center
for Research in Security Prices (CRSP)
5. Penn
World Tables - comprehensive data (standards of living, prices, GDP,
investment, population and much more) from over 150 countries
6. Federal
Reserve Economic Data (FRED) - provides downloadable ASCII files of
historical U.S. economic and financial data, including daily U.S. interest
rates, monetary and business indicators, exchange rates, balance of payments
and regional economic data.
7. Wharton
Research Data Services (WRDS) - WRDS allows Faculty, Researchers and
Students to query and retrieve information from a wide variety of databases
across multiple disciplines such as Finance, Marketing, Management, Accounting,
Economics, Banking, and Insurance. WRDS data consist of historical financial
information for banks, government bonds, stock exchanges, and major companies.
8. Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS)
9. Current Population Survey (CPS)
10. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA)
11. United States Census Bureau
12. Atlanta Census Research Data Center
D. Tools
1. Stata--Be sure to get the student licenses, which are much cheaper.
2. StatTransfer--can use to transfer data from one format to another.
3. Other statistical software depending on your specific research
E. Human Subjects/ Institutional Review Boards
1. Guidelines
2. Categories of Review
a. Administrative (Exempt)--especially #4
b. Expedited
c. Full Board
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3. Application
4. Advice
Assignment
Write essay #5 that describes a data set that you may use for your research.
E. Common Data Problems
Introduction - classical regression
assumptions
1. Omitted variable bias
a. Bias
b. Examples
Mustard, David B. 2003. "Reexamining Criminal Behavior: The Importance of Omitted Variable Bias." The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol.
85, no. 1: 205-211.
Grinols, Earl L. and David B. Mustard. 2006. "Casinos, Crime, and Community Costs." The Review of Economics and Statistics, Vol.
88, no. 1 (February): 28-45.
c. Corrections
d. How should you respond in a talk?
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e. What are examples from your own or other's research?
f. How do we solve or account for this problem?
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2. Too many
variables
3. Simultaneity
a. Bias
b. Two stage
least squares
c. Instruments
(294-295)
Requirements for instruments
d. Examples
1) Levitt, Steven D. (1997) “Using Electoral Cycles in Police Hiring to
Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime.” American Economic Review, Vol.
87 (June) 270-90.
e. What are examples from your own or other's research?
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Assignment
Student Presentations of Essay #5
-------------------------------------- Wed. Oct. 3
Assignment
Student Presentations of Essay #5
-------------------------------------- Mon. Oct. 8
4. Measurement Error
a. Example
b. Effects
c. Outliers
d. Researcher
responses
5. Sample selection bias
a. Definition
b. Sources
1) Self-reporting
2) Researcher imposed
c. Problems
1) Included data perfectly represent the whole population
2) Missing data are systematically related to the phenomena being
studied
a) Benefits from migrating – only see those who move
b) Wages of women – only see those who are working
c) Effect of training and education on post-release outcomes (my first
dissertation project failed because of lack of data).
d) Almost any type of program evaluation where people choose whether
they
want to engage in the program (job training for low-skill or displaced
workers).
d. Corrections
– to c1
1) Condition
2) Strategies
e. Corrections
to c2
1) Honesty
2) Two-step Heckman
f. Examples
Neal. 2004. "The Measured Black-White Wage Gap Among Women is Too Small", Journal
of Political Economy, Vol. 112 (February): S1-S28.
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4. Attrition Bias
a. Definition
b. Sources
c. Problems
d. Corrections
5. Truncation
a. Problem
b. Exercise
c. Examples
d. Solution
6. Censoring
a. Problem
b. Examples
c. Solution
7. Quantile Regressions
a. Problem
b. Examples
c. Solution
8. Regression discontinuity
a. Problem
b. Examples
c. Solution
-------------------------------------- Mon. Oct. 15
7. Theory and Models
Read
Varian, Hal R. 2009. "How to Build and Economic Model in Your Spare Time." July 25. The original version was an essay for Passion and Craft: Economists at Work, edited by Michael Szenberg, University of Michigan Press, 1997. The current version is slightly updated.
Krugman, Paul. 1993. "How I Work." The American Economist. Vol. 37, No. 2 (Fall).
-------------------------------------- Wed. Oct. 17
8. Presenting and publishing your research
Read
1. Hamermesh, Daniel S. 1992. "The
Young Economist's Guide to Professional Ethics." Journal of Economic
Perspectives, vol. 6, no. 1 (Winter): 169-179.
2. Feldman,
Daniel. 2004. "The Devil is in the Details: Converting Good Research into Publishable Articles.” Journal of Management.
Vol. 30 (Feb.) 1-6.
Assignments
1. Open accounts on REPEC and SSRN.
2. Sign up for some SSRN working paper series
3. Talk to advisor about possible presentations
A. Where do I present my research?
1. Summer workshop series
2. Oral exam
3. Thesis proposal in normal workshop
4. Annual meetings of general organizations
a. American Economics Association
b. Southern Economics Association
c. Midwest Economics Association
5. Annual meetings of field organizations
a. Society of
Labor Economics
b. Association for Education Finanace and Policy
c. American Law
and Economics Association
6. Other specific organizations
a. National Bureau of Economic Research
B. How do I choose a journal to submit to?
1. How do I submit?
2. How long should the review take?
3. Under what circumstances should I contact the author?
Example: JLE request
C. What do I do after I receive a rejection?
1. Where do I send next?
2. Should I appeal?
Example: JLE appeal
D. What do I do when I receive a revise and resubmit?
Example: JLE revision JOLE revision
-------------------------------------- Mon. Oct. 22
E. Dissemination of research: Pre-publishing protocol
1. Social Science Research Network (SSRN)
2. Research Papers in Economics (REPEC)
Links:
Journal of Human Capital
Economics of Education Review
9. Providing Feedback to Others
Read
1. Hammermesh,
Daniel. 1994. "Facts and Myths about Refereeing.” Journal of Economic Perspectives.
Vol. 8 (Winter) 153-163.
2. Barrett, Christopher and David B. Mustard. 2002. "The Ministry of Referees and Discussants." Faith and Economics, Vol. 40, (Fall): 26-32.
A. Submission and review process
1. Single-blind
2. Double-blind
B. Objective of the review process
C. Guidelines for writing a good review
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D. Examples of referee reports
Example 1--
Example 2--
E. Serving as a referee
1. What papers should you agree to review?
2. In what circumstances should you turn down a request to review?
F. Serving as a discussant
Assignment
1. Write essay #6 a referee report for a paper that you are using for your research or as a discussant for a conference.
10. Job Market
Read
1. Cawley,
John. 2004. "A Guide (and Advice) for Economists on the U.S. Junior Academic Job Market." Job Openings for Economists.
October.
2. "Job Openings for Economists". American Economic Association.
Assignment
Write a cv
Develop your own website and post at UGA
Become familiar with Economics 9000/9300 "Job Market Directory"
A. Timeline
1. Spring of year you go on market--speak with advisor and committee members
2. Summer--have one polished paper and a second solid papers
-------------------------------------- Mon. Oct. 29
3. Labor Day--have a very polished draft that you will send out for your job market paper
4. JOE--September through December issues
5. November 15: packets set out
6. December 1-18: most invitations to
interview will be issued (occassionally you can get some up to AEA
meetings)
7. December (mid)--practice interviews both with faculty and on your own
8. January (first weekend)--American Economic Association Annual Meeting
9. January to March: Campus visits and primary market clears
10. March to May: Campus visits and secondary market clears
B. What you need to do to get ready
1. Speak with committee and dissertation advisor
2. Progress on your own research
a. Two papers by Labor Day
b. Be able to graduate by May or August of the following year
3. CV
Examples
a. Ex. 1
4. Cover letter
Examples:
a. Ex. 1
C. UGA Graduate School Teaching Portfolio
D. Where to look for jobs--See Cawley p. 10.
E. Decide on your market(s)
1. Academic
2. Private Sector
3. Government Sector
4. International
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E. Letters of recommendation
1. Mechanics
2. Mailmerge
a. Base file
b. Cover letter code
c. Labels
F. Websites/Social media
1. Departmental job candidates
2. Personal website
3. Facebook and other social media
11. Raising Support--Grants and Fellowships
A. Benefits of raising support from grants and fellowships
B. Dissertation Funding
1. Typical Requirements
Abstract
Paper
resume or cv
Letters of recommendation (1-3)
Timeline for dissertation completion
Statement about future plans
2. Examples
a. UGA Competion Grant
Need high GPA and papers
b. Political Economy Research Center
Deadline: Nov. 15
Stipend: $20,000
c. AAUW Fellowships--women doctoral candidates
Deadline: Nov. 15
Stipend: $20,000
d. Ford Dissertation Diversity Fellowships--goal is to increase the diversity of nation's faculty
Deadline: Nov. 28
Stipend: $21,000
e. Social Science Research Council--a variety of awards
f. Andrew Mellon Foundation--
Deadline: Nov. 12
Stipend: $25,000
g. Charlotte W. Newcombe Fellowships (Woodrow Wilson Foundation)--topics involving religious studies or ethics
Deadline: Nov. 14
Stipend: $25,000
h. American Educational Research Association (dissertations on education policy)
Deadline: Aug, Jan, March
Stipend: $15,000
i. Kaufman Dissertation Fellowship Program (research in entrepreneurship)
j. Spencer Foundation (research in education)
k. Many for completing dissertation research in other countries
l. Many targed
towards students who are under represted in academia
C. UGA Dean's Award for data
1. Deadline
2. Requirement
D. Internal funding in the future
1. University specific--UGA Research Foundation
2. College specific--Terry-Sanford Awards
E. External funding opportunities
1. Requirements
2. Suggestions
3. Examples
a. Public
b. Private
-------------------------------------- Mon. 11/5, Wed. 11/7, Mon 11/12, Wed. 11/14; Mon 11/26; Wed. 11/28
Student Presentations of Assignment #7 (Present your paper)
Assignment #8 (Evaluation of fellow student's presentation)
-------------------------------------- Mon. Dec. 3
Material to be integrated
Write a brief critique of the letter.
2. Figlio, David (1994) "Trends in
the Publication of Empirical Economics." Journal of Economic Perspectives,
vol. 8, no. 3 (Summer): 179-187.
3. National Academy of Sciences. (1995)
On
Being a Scientist: Responsible Conduct in Research. Washington, DC:
National Academy Press.
2. *Hansen,
W. Lee (1991) “The Education and Training of Economics Doctorates.” Journal
of Economic Literature. Vol. 29, no. 3 (September): 1054-1087.
3. *Krueger,
Anne O. (1991) “Report of the Commission on Graduate Education in Economics.”
Journal
of Economic Literature. Vol. 29, no. 3 (September): 1035-1053.
4. Thompson,
William (1999) "The Young Person's Guide to Writing Economic Theory," Journal
of Economic Literature. Vol. 37 (March): 157-183.
4. Burton,
Michael and Euan Phimister (1996) “The Ranking of Agricultural Economics
Journals.” Journal of Agricultural Economics. Vol. 47 (January):
109-14.
5. Hudson,
John (1996) “Trends in Multi-authored Papers in Economics.” Journal
of Economic Perspectives. Vol. 10 (Summer): 153-58.
6. Laband,
David N. and Michael J. Piette (1994) “The Relative Impacts of Economics
Journals: 1970-1990.” Journal of Economic Literature. Vol. 32 (June):
640-66.
7. Mason,
Paul M., Jeffrey W. Steagall and Michael M. Fabritius (1997) "Economics
Journal Rankings by Type of School: Perceptions versus Citations." Quarterly
Journal of Business and Economics. Vol. 36 (Winter): 69-79.
8. Scott,
Loren C. and Peter M. Mitias (1996) “Trends in Rankings of Economics Departments
in the U.S.: An Update.” Economic Inquiry. Vol. 34 (April): 378-400.