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ECON 6301 Applied Microeconomic Theory

This document provides guidelines for the paper that you will write for ECON 6301 Applied Microeconomic Theory. This paper is the most important assignment in this course, and I urge you to spend time early in the semester formulating a specific question that you can address  --- and for which you can find data --- in the short amount of time you have to write your paper.  You have roughly ten weeks to write your paper, so it is imperative that you get started early and that you define your question as narrowly as possible.

1 Overview

You will write a short analytical paper and make a brief presentation of your final paper for this course.. The objective of the paper and presentation is for you to apply the tools you develop in this applied microeconomic theory course to analyze a microeconomic issue of your choice and to present your analysis in a compelling manner to your peers.

By successfully completing the paper and presentation, you will have developed the skills to identify a research question, describe the data and create charts that illustrate your topic, apply the theory to the question to construct an economic hypothesis, and set forth an econometric specification that you would use to answer the question posed in your paper.  You also will have gained experience in explaining your paper in front of an audience.

Ø If you are taking ECON 6375 this semester, then you will write one paper for both classes. The part of your paper for ECON 6301 will develop the theory and do the literature review, among other things, while the part of your paper that does the econometrics will count for ECON 6375.

You may use the topic you analyze in this paper in your Time Series (ECON 6376) class.  Please tell me and your other instructor if you are using this paper in both classes.

1a. Format

Your paper should be from 10 to 12 pages, excluding the title page, charts/tables/graphs, and references.  Your paper should be in 12-point font, preferably Garamond, Times New Roman, or similar, with 1.5 inch spacing and 1-inch margins.  I allow leeway for charts and tables that take up a lot of space. The point is that your paper should be concise --- 13 pages is ok, but 20 pages are not!

Your papers should be well written – meaning in good English with no typos or grammatical errors.  Runing spell and grammar check before you submit your paper will catch lots of errors!

Your equations should be typed on separate lines and numbered consecutively.  Please use the equation editor in Word or LaTeX or another program designed for writing equations.

If you need help with the actual writing, please contact GW’s Writing Center.  You can book appointments online at gwu.mywconline.

1b. Resources to help improve your writing

This book by Deirdre N. McCloskey. 2019. Economical Writing, 3d edition, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, will help you improve your writing.

This article by Jonathan A. Schwabish. 2014. “An Economist’s Guide to Visualizing Data,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 28(10): 209-34, will help you improve your presentations.

Although it focuses on Ph.D. students his paper by John H. Cochrane from the University of Chicago. 2005. “Writing Tips for Ph.D. Students,” gives some good tips on organizing your paper, how to do empirical work, and making a presentation (it also has some good comments about what to put on the front page --- follow that advice!)

1c.  Resources to improve your quantitative analysis

Hal Varian, the chief economist at Google, provides a good introduction on how to build an economic model. Hal R. Varian. 1994. “How to Build an Economic Model in Your Spare Time,” University of California, Berkeley.

For a refresher on your basic econometric skills, see Joshua D. Angrist and Jörn-Steffen Pischke, 2015, Mastering ‘Metrics. The path from cause to effect, Princeton University Press. Chapter 2 is particularly helpful for your paper.

1.0 Content and Structure of the Paper

The best way to choose a topic for your paper is to find an issue that interests you.  The only restriction you face is that your issue must concern applied microeconomics and it should be a very, very, very narrow question. Thus, you can write a paper, for example, on how taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages affect consumer spending on sodas in Berkeley, but you shouldn’t write a paper about how inflation affects the economy (that’s too broad and, besides, it’s a macro topic).

The best way to frame your topic is in the form of a question, i.e., How does X affect Y, where Y is the variable you’re interested in explaining and X is a variable that helps explain Y.  In the example here, X stands for soda taxes and Y stands for consumer spending on sodas.  I recommend that you narrow your topic to an idea that you can analyze within the limits of this paper. Many students have difficulty narrowing their question to a manageable issue.  Don’t try to boil the ocean!

Remember that you are applying a microeconomic theory to your data.  The point of the paper is not to do a forecast but to analyze a microeconomic theory using real-world data.

1.1 Getting Started

1.1a Posing a question and writing the title of your paper

The best way to find a question that you want to answer is to think about microeconomic ideas that interest you.  From that point, you can identify a specific question within that field that you might wish to address.  For example, you might be interested in how government can use policy to change consumer behavior. Within that broad topic, you can identify a specific policy, such as how governments use taxes on sweetened beverages to reduce the consumption of such beverages.

Once you have a general topic, try to think of an issue within that topic that you’d like to address. For example, if you are interested in how taxes affect the consumption of sweetened beverages, you can write your question as “Do taxes on sweetened beverages reduce consumption of those beverages?”  The more specific your question, the easier it will be to answer the question.  Therefore, rather than looking at taxes on all sweetened beverages everywhere you could look just at taxes in a specific city, e.g., Berkeley.

The point is for you to spend some time thinking about how to formulate your research question.

Ø Asking the right question is the most important step to take in your paper.  The more time you spend refining this question, the more focused your research will be and the better the paper you will write.

Ø Talk with your classmates about your idea.  If you can’t explain your idea to your friends, then you need to refine your question.

Ø Many students struggle with their paper because they have not properly formulated their question!

Once you have your question, you can write the title for your paper.

· It’s generally easiest to write your title in the form “How does X affect Y?: An Example from Country Z”

By posing your question in this format, you can easily identify your variables of interest that form the heart of your paper. The X variable is your MAIN variable of interest:  Taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs). The Y variable is your dependent variable:  Consumption of sugary beverages.  Of course, a lot of variables affect consumption of SSBs, but your paper is focusing on taxes …. the other independent variables that affect consumption, such as income, are control variables and are not your main focus.  You can provide additional details about the scope of your paper as a subtitle.

For example, if you are looking at the taxation of sugar-sweetened beverages, you could title your paper:

How do taxes affect the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages?  A case study of the sugar tax in Berkeley

Alternatively, you can write your question in a form where you indicate your hypothesis:

Do taxes reduce the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages? A case study of the sugar tax in Berkeley

If you find it difficult to come up with a question, read the newspaper, business magazines, journals and the papers assigned in class. Current events are good sources for ideas. So is talking to your friends.

Your question should be explicit and narrowly focused so you can address it in the page and time limit of this course.  For example, you may be interested in the issue of income inequality. But there’s no way you can analyze that entire issue in your paper in one semester!  You would need an entire career to do that.  However, you can do something more narrowly focused, such as analyzing the wage structure in an industry over time.

You should use your journal to share your ideas about your paper. I will stress, again, that you should focus on a narrow topic!

Look at these papers to see how to present your question, discuss the data, and motivate the reader.

Carter, Susan Payne, Kyle Greenberg , Michael S. Walker. 2017.”The impact of computer usage on academic performance: Evidence from a randomized trial at the United States Military Academy,” Economics of Education Review 56: 118-32.

Kleven, Henrik, Camille Landais, Mathilde Munoz, and Stefanie Stantcheva. 2020. “Taxation and Migration: Evidence and Policy Implications,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 34(2):119-142.

Slattery, Caitlin and Owen Zidar. 2020. “Evaluating State and Local Business Incentives,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 34(2):90-118.

Here are some things to examine in those papers.  The Carter, et. al., paper presents the data in many different categories and provides an excellent summary table.  The regressions are presented in an orderly, easy-to-read format (see Tables 3 and 4) where the reader can readily draw conclusions regarding the impact of computer usage on academic performance while controlling for other variables that might affect academic performance.

Note how the Kleven, et al, paper creates a table to summarize the key findings from the existing literature and briefly describes their results, creates a table to summarize tax incentives, and presents a set of individual country charts.  Figure 2 is excellent.

The Slattery and Zidar paper gives an excellent example of how to summarize previous studies and the variety of tax incentives across states (Table 1). It also uses a case study (about VW) and provides some charts showing correlations (Figures 1 and 2) to motivate the paper.

ü It’s worth spending a lot of time thinking about your research question and finding papers on the topic before you start writing!

1.1b The Title Page: The Abstract and the JEL classification and keywords.

Your paper should begin with a title page that has the title, an abstract, your name and contact information, JEL codes and keywords, and the date of that version of the paper.

The title page should contain all the information that the reader needs to know about your paper and how to reach you.

It should have the title, your name and email address, the date of that version, the abstract and a list of JEL codes with details and keywords. Make sure to update the date from your draft paper when you submit your final paper!

The title page should stand alone – start your introduction on the second page.

The Abstract: Your abstract should present your question, summarize results from the literature, describe your key variables and identify the source of the data, and indicate your expected results or conclusion. The abstract should be about 100-150 words and summarize the question and the main findings in your paper. Readers rely on the abstract to tell them what the paper is about so that they know whether they wish to read the entire paper.  The abstract is especially helpful if a reader is reviewing dozens of papers!

Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) classification and keywords: The "JEL" classification system originated with the Journal of Economic Literature and is a standard method of classifying scholarly literature in the field of economics. The Journal of Economic Literature provides JEL Code application guidelines, keywords, and examples of items within each classification. The codes and keywords help other readers find your paper by limiting their search to these elements.

The Journal of Economic Literature and the American Economic Association website both list the codes for classifying your research.  The codes give a good idea of what the paper is about and helps readers identify papers in this topic.  For example, code H is Public Economics, H2 is Taxation, Subsidies and Revenue, and H25 is Business Taxation and Subsidies.  You should use the most specific link possible for your work to help readers find papers that are in their area of interest.  The AEA link notes the importance of being accurate with your JEL codes, including cross-listing codes when important.  Your paper generally will have more than one JEL code and keyword.

Here is an example description for the code H250 Business taxation and subsidies including sales a value-added (VAT):

H250 Business Taxes and Subsidies including sales and value-added (VAT).
Guideline: Covers studies about issues related to business taxes and subsidies. Includes studies about sales tax, value-added tax, and farm and other business subsidies.

Keywords: ad Valorem Tax, Business Subsidies, Business Tax, Capital Gains Tax, Capital Taxation, Cash Flow Tax, Commodity Tax, Consumption Tax, Corporate Welfare, Excise Tax, Farm Subsidies, Reorganization Tax, Sales Tax, Turnover Tax, Value Added Tax.

Caveats: Studies about the efficiency and optimality of these taxes should be cross-classified here and under H21.Studies about the effects of these taxes on firm behavior, for example investment behavior, should be cross-classified here and under H32.Studies about farm subsidies should be cross-classified here and under Q18.

You can find the JEL codes at this link: https://www.aeaweb.org/jel/guide/jel.php

ü Appendix 1 to this document presents a typical Abstract.

ü Appendix 6 gives examples from articles from aeaweb.org

1.2 The Introduction and the Literature Review

1.2a The introduction

The second page of your paper, i.e., the page after the title page, should start with the Introduction. The introduction should be on a new page, not on the title page!

Your introduction should tell the reader what your paper is about, and it should capture the reader’s interest and give an idea of why the reader should read your paper.  Readers have time constraints and want to know that they will learn something from your paper that they don’t already know.  Read the introductions to a variety of papers to see whether the author(s) stimulate your interest in reading the full paper and follow that model if it leads you to read the whole paper.

Your introduction should make it clear that you are addressing an important issue!

Don’t write a “road map” paragraph that tells the reader what you’ll do in the upcoming sections.  The direction of your paper should naturally flow from your text.  The introduction shouldn’t include too much data, references to other studies, etc. Instead, it should encourage the reader to continue reading!

1.2b Literature Review

Conducting a literature review is essential so that you know what has already been written about your topic and so you don’t tell us something that we already know. You should summarize the literature that tell the reader what other researchers have already found about your topic. Creating a summary table of the analysis conducted in the earlier literature is helpful.  The JEL is an excellent place to find articles in your area of interest.  You should also look at EconLit to search the economics journals.  You can search by JEL codes, keywords, authors, etc.

Read the abstracts of the papers you find during your literature search to see if they are relevant for your paper.  Pick a few that are most relevant.  Think before you search --- you’ll save time!

If while conducting your review, you find that someone has already analyzed your question, don’t despair.  You can look at the question for a different time, on a different population, or even on the same dataset, but using different variables. Other papers may not have considered some variables that you think are important to answer the question.

In many cases, you will find that the literature comes to a variety of conclusions. Some studies, for example, may find that employment falls when the minimum wage increases, while others find that there’s no impact. These contradictions are common in economics!

To help the reader understand this volume of work and the conflicting conclusions, it helps to combine literature into similar categories. Thus, if you are examining how increases in the minimum wage affect employment in the fast-food industry, you could group the studies that find a negative impact in one paragraph, studies that find no impact in another paragraph, and students that find a positive impact in a third paragraph.

Keep your literature review short so that your paper is about your results, not about the results from other researchers. You don’t have to cite all papers on the subject.  This paper is a paper, not a dissertation!

For this assignment, four to five citations should be enough to summarize what we already know about the subject. A good strategy is to group papers that reach similar conclusions. Summarizing the studies in a table is a good way to help the reader know what’s going on.

As mentioned above, the Kleven, et. al. paper (2020) provides a good example of how to summarize the results of several studies.

Here are examples of how to list citations in your paper:

Market concentration has been linked to adverse consumer outcomes in many specific instances; firms with monopoly power can and do exploit their position through higher prices (DOJ 2008; Kwoka, Greenfield, and Gu 2015). Indeed, firms’ markups—one indicator of firms’ pricing power—have likely been rising (De Loecker and Eeckhout 2017).

Work by Gutiérrez and Philippon (2017a) suggests that rising concentration is indeed related to the deterioration in ……

- Sources for literature

The American Economic Association publishes several journals and the AEA website is a good place to start looking for research in your area of interest. https://www.aeaweb.org/

The Journal of Economic Literature, The Journal of Economic Perspectives, EconLit and JSTOR are good sources for finding research in your area. Read the abstracts of the papers to see whether the research is relevant to your question. JSTOR has a comprehensive list. The Journal of Economic Perspectives is a good source of non-technical articles.  If you’re in luck, you will find a Symposium that covers your issue!

The National Bureau of Economic Research summarizes economic research in a range of fields. Go to the website www.nber.org and click on the various resources (e.g., The NBER Reporter, the NBER Digest, and the vast series of Working Papers).

· All papers in the literature review should be in the references and all papers in the references should be mentioned in the paper.

· List your references in a section at the end of the paper not as footnotes!

The articles that you summarize in your literature review are excellent places to find data!

ü Appendix 2 presents a typical literature review

1.3 Charts/Tables/Diagrams

In this section, you will include charts and other visual aids that give the reader an idea of what your data show. For example, you could have a chart that shows how consumption of sweetened beverages has changed over time and indicate time periods when taxes came into effect.  The point of the charts is to give the reader a picture of what’s happening.

Your paper MUST include a graph showing the correlation between your X and Y variables (that’s why you need to identify these variables early in your paper!).  These correlations should show the general influence of the X variable on the Y variable.  For example, if you are looking at how changes in taxes affect consumption of sugary drinks, your chart should show a general negative slope between the tax rate and consumption.  See Figure 2B in Schwabisch (2014) for an example of how to present your correlations.

Although a correlation chart is helpful, remember that this chart shows correlations across the data and not causation across the data! The two-variable chart does not hold all else equal.  The reason to include the correlation, however, is because that correlation is often what attracts interest in the question in the first place.  If your chart shows that consumption of sugary beverages fell after taxes on those beverages went up, then you would like to know if the taxes caused the drop in consumption or if something else is going on and the relationship is merely a correlation.

· Beware of spurious correlation!

Spend some time discussing what your charts illustrate. Play around with different chart formats – sometimes bar charts are better than line charts.  Pie charts are useful when showing shares. Why did you present the data in this manner?  Is the chart format the best one to show these data?

Your charts/tables/diagrams should have titles and be numbered consecutively.  The chart details should be formatted so that they can be read in black and white (i.e., make sure your lines have different patterns rather than different colors). Each graph/chart/table should have a title and a note indicating the source of the data, including the URL.

You can find good examples of how to present charts (and sources of the data) by reviewing the papers on the reading list. By doing the exercises in DoingEcon and reading the Schwabisch (2014) article you will learn lots of ways to best present your data.

1.4 Data

A good way to find data is to examine sources used in other papers.  That’s another reason why the literature review is so important.  Chances are that you are not the first person to examine the question posed in your paper.  Build from work that’s already been done.

Your paper should include a table that summarizes the data (number of variables, min, max, average, variation) so that the reader has an idea of the scale and variation in your data. It is helpful to include a table that describes your variables.  Make sure to specify the units of measurement.  Are the data in levels or rates? Are some data binary?  Dummy variables? This table will help you identify whether there are outliers in your data and whether you need to clean up the data.  For example, if your data has wages as a variable and your summary table shows that the minimum value is negative, then your data likely has an error, and you need to look closely at that data point.

Learning how to deal with “bad” data is a key skill for an applied economist.

The data section of your paper should identify the source of the data that you are using in your analysis, including a description of your data.

ü Appendix 3 presents a discussion of data

ü Appendix 4 discusses how to summarize your data

ü Appendix 7 lists several sources of data.

1.5 Economic Theory

Your question must be based on a microeconomic theory. Thus, you should spend time thinking about the economic theory behind your question and then use that theory to discuss the results you expect to find in your analysis.  Refer to your textbook for ideas!

For example, a fundamental element of consumer demand theory shows that as the price of a good or service increases, demand for that good or service decreases.  Thus, we expect that when governments impose taxes on sugar sweetened beverages, consumption of those beverages should fall, all else equal.

If you are analyzing a firm’s decisions, you know that it uses inputs to produce output.  And, the relative prices of its inputs and the ease of input substitution (the form of the production function) affect its factor choices.  Thus, , when the cost of capital increases, firms would be expected to reduce their spending on capital investment, all else equal.  The amount of substitutability depends on the elasticity of substitution among inputs.

Of course, it is difficult to hold everything else equal, meaning that empirical evidence might show that consumption increased despite the tax increase.  This increase might happen for lots of good reasons --- incomes might have gone up, population may have grown, or prices of other goods might have increased by even more than the prices of the taxed goods. These empirical results do not invalidate the theory, but they show the importance of holding all other factors constant when evaluating the impact of the independent variable (in this case the tax), on the dependent variable (the consumption of the taxed good).

You can use the theory from your microeconomics textbook or from one of the articles that you identified in your literature review.  The point of identifying a theory is for you to learn how to apply economic theory to your empirical analysis.

This section should also include a discussion of why you include the variables in your paper.

· Since this is an applied microeconomic theory course, your paper MUST include an economic theory.

· The goal of the paper is not to make a forecast, but to apply a theory!

You should type all parts of your text that contain equations or formulas using an equation editor. Place each equation on a separate line and be sure to define your variables.

1.6 Econometric Specification

Your question should broadly have the form of “How does X affect Y” with Y being your variable of interest and X being the key variable that affects Y. In econometric terms, Y is your dependent variable (the left hand side of a regression equation) and X is the independent variable (the right hand side of the equation).  In this example, Y is consumption of sweetened beverage and X is taxes.  You can also consider the X variable to be the Treatment and the Y variable to be the Outcome.

Your regression will contain lots of other variables that affect sugar-sweetened beverage consumption – those are the ones that you control for so that you can focus on how taxes affect consumption. You should identify and discuss other variables that affect your variable of interest. Make sure that you define all your variables. Keep in mind that your variable of interest is X, not the control variables.

You should type your econometric specification in the form of a typical regression.  After writing your regression equation, you should create a list of your dependent and independent variables and discuss the impact that you expect each variable to have on your dependent variable.

Regressions should be of the form “How does X affect Y controlling for all other variables.”  So, if you’re looking at how subsidies for electric vehicles (your X variable) affect spending on electric vehicles (your Y variable), all else equal, your regression equation would look something like this:

Where EV sales = annual sales of electric vehicles in 2000 dollars

Subsidies = the annual rate of subsidy, in 2020 dollars, for each electric vehicle

Income = annual income in 2020 dollars

Price of other vehicles = the price of non-electric vehicles in 2020 dollars

The variables in bold red are the key variables in your paper. EV sales are your outcome (the Y variable) and Subsidies are the treatment (the X variable). Your main independent variable should be the first one listed on the right-hand side of your equation. All the other independent variables listed are control variables.

After listing your variables, you should discuss the expected effect each X variable will have on your Y variable, i.e., what sign will each coefficient have – will it be positive or negative? The expected impact of the variable should be based on economic theory.

For example, you would expect that as subsidies increase, sales of EV increase. Thus, your estimate of will be positive.  As income and the price of other vehicles increase, you also expect EV sales to increase.  Here’s an example of apply the theory to the analysis:  EVs are normal goods, so as income increases, so would consumption of a normal good; Other vehicles are substitutes for EVs, so as their prices increase, expect sales of EVs to increase, and so on.

If you ran a regression, the estimate of the coefficient would provide the exact sign, size and significance of the variable.

The main things you look for in your estimated coefficients are SIGN, SIZE, and SIGNIFICANCE.

i) For the regression above, do subsidies have a positive impact on sales? Is the sign correct?

ii) Is the impact relatively large or small?  Is the impact large?

iii) Is the estimate statistically significant? Is the estimate important?

Of course, the actual estimate may not conform the theory, but that’s something you’ll find out when you do your actual regression. The fact that the sign is not what you expect to obtain when you do a regression does not mean that the theory is wrong. It likely means that there are other factors that have a greater impact on sales than the subsidies.  It could also be because your regression is mis-specified, has an omitted variable(s), or suffers from other econometric issues. Those are problems that you address in your econometrics class.  Here, you just need to specify the variables that you would include in your regression and their expected impact.

In ECON 6301, you discuss your topic, the data, and the theory behind your analysis and provide an econometric specification. Your analysis of the economic theory provides a foundation for the papers you will write in ECON 6375 Applied Econometrics or in ECON 6376 Time Series Analysis.  You’ll identify your econometric strategy and discuss any econometric issues that affect your analysis in your econometrics and/or time series class.

You do not need to do anything more in your applied microeconomics paper than specify a regression equation that lists the left-hand side and right-hand side variables, describes why those variables are in your paper, and what impact you expect them to have on your variable of interest.  You don’t need to specify the type of econometric analysis or the format of your variables (i.e., whether you are doing a fixed effects analysis with variables in log form).

1.7 Conclusion and Grammar

Your paper should have a brief conclusion that summarizes what your paper is about. The paper, itself, should have made your findings clear so that the conclusion doesn’t present new information.  Since you won’t have run a regression you won’t have results, o\so your conclusion should indicate what you expect to find.

Your paper should not have grammatical and typographical errors.

Eliminate jargon and unnecessary words.

Don’t repeat yourself.

Run spelling and grammar check!

Write in the active, not the passive, tense.

For example, instead of saying “This paper was written by Prof. Weiner” say “Prof. Weiner wrote this paper.”

Don’t use “we” for a paper if you are the only author.

Add page numbers and label all your charts/graphs/tables.

Put your references in alphabetical order and provide all relevant information.

Make sure your title page has everything on it that it is supposed to have! Title, name, email address, date, abstract, JEL codes and keywords

1.8 References

Your reference section should include complete details on all papers, articles, web sites, data sets, etc., that you mention in your paper.  All papers, articles, web sites, datasets, etc., that you list in your references should also be mentioned in the paper.

You have several options for formatting your references.  Just make sure that regardless of what format you choose, you use that same format throughout your paper.

You may use the Chicago Manual of Style Author-Date system for all common publications.  For references to datasets, newspapers, books published electronically, etc., see the recommendations on the American Economic Association website.

E.g., For a journal article

Citations of journals include the volume and issue number and date of publication. The volume number follows the italicized journal title in roman and with no intervening punctuation. A specific page reference is included in the text; the page range for an article is included in the reference list, preceded by a colon. The issue number often appears in parentheses (as in the first pair of examples below). If a journal is paginated consecutively across a volume or if the month or season is included in the reference list entry, however, the issue number (or month or season) may be omitted (as in the second and third pairs of examples).

Blair, Walter. 1977. “Americanized Comic Braggarts.” Critical Inquiry 4 (2): 331–49.

(Blair 1977, 331–32)

JSTOR provides an easy way to format your references in several different styles, including the Chicago Manual and RefWorks.  I recommend that you format your references properly from the start so that you can get this portion of your paper out of the way early.  JSTOR has a website created especially for students.

RefWorks is a cloud-based tool for managing citations and creating bibliographies. RefWorks is a powerful online research management, writing and collaboration tool designed to help researchers at all levels easily gather, organize, store and share all types of information and to instantly generate citations and bibliographies.

https://libguides.gwu.edu/citing

ü Appendix 5 shows how to list your references

1.9 Summary of the Paper Structure

This section summarizes the structure of your paper. In addition to the title page that includes the title, your name, and the abstract and JEL codes and keywords the paper itself should have the following sections (in the order given):

1. An introduction that presents your question and makes the reader motivated to read the paper.

2. A brief literature review and analysis of previous work of relevant papers on the topic and a discussion of how your paper extends this body of knowledge.

3. A discussion of the data and at least three charts/tables/diagrams that summarize your data. One chart should show the correlation between your independent variable and your main dependent variable. One table should provide summary statistics of the data.

4. A description of the theory that applies to your question. This section should include a few mathematical equations that illustrate your theory and/or model.  Your equations should be typed using an equation editor and numbered consecutively.

5. A potential econometric specification of your model, including a description of your dependent and independent variables, why they belong in your model and the impact you expect them to have on your independent variable. You should not discuss econometric issues nor do an econometric analysis.  But, you should discuss why you included the variables and the influence you expect those variables to have on your analysis

6. A brief conclusion that summarizes what you learned from your literature review, your review of the data, and your theoretical analysis.  And, what you expect to find from your analysis.

7. A reference section with complete details on all your references.  All items listed in the references must be included in the paper and vice versa and be formatted properly.  Make sure to include a reference for your data sources.

1.10 Evaluation

Rubric 2 identifies the categories I will use to evaluate your final paper.

2.0 Presentation and Comments

Creating a VoiceThread presentation and making comments on your classmates’ presentations are key components of this class.

2.1 Presentation

You will use the VoiceThread tool in BlackBoard for your presentation. The purpose of using VoiceThread is to allow you to learn this tool and to become familiar with making oral presentations.

You will prepare two VoiceThreads.

VT1:  Your first VoiceThread will present your idea and provide the basic structure of your paper.  This VT will have just 56slides:

1) The first slide will be a title slide with the paper title and your name,

2) the next four slides will describe your data and paper, and

3) the final slide will pose questions to your classmates designed to help you improve your paper.

Your classmates will comment on your presentation and help you answer these questions.  Your presentation should have a video of you alongside each slide so that you are “mimicking” a presentation that you would be making in person.

In addition to uploading your presentation into VoiceThread, you will present your idea to class to obtain feedback on your paper idea from your classmates.

VT2:  Your second VoiceThread will be an “online” presentation of your paper.  As with the first VT, it should have a video of you alongside the slide that you are describing. This presentation will have up to a dozen (12) slides.

Upload your first Voice Thread file in this format:  Last name, first name, VT1, title,

e.g., Weiner, Joann, VT1, Taxes and business investment

Upload your second VT file as Last name, First name VT2, title (you can change the title if you’d like)

e.g., Weiner, Joann, VT2, How taxes affect business investment

Uploading files in this manner makes sure that your VT files are in alphabetical order so that it is easy to find them and associates the VT with you and not your classmate!

2.2 Comments

Students must comment on your classmate’s VoiceThreads.  For the first VT, you should give helpful suggestions on how to improve the paper. The presenter is likely to ask questions about the idea so your comments can be very helpful in this regard.

You should comment on at least three different VoiceThreads.

ü Please spread out your comments so that everyone has at least 3 comments on their presentation.

For the second VoiceThread, you can comment on what you learned and whether the presentation conveyed the presenter’s idea.  You can also note whether the visualization was informative and if the video comments matched the slides. As with the first VT, students should comment on at least 3 different VoiceThreads. Use rubric 3 to evaluate the final presentation.

ü I will evaluate you on the quality of your VT comments.

3.0 Timeline

This section sets forth the assignments and due dates for key assignments. Unless otherwise specified, assignments are due on Blackboard by noon the day before class meets. The due date and where you should provide the assignment location are listed in bold.

You should write each section of the paper in a manner that will allow you to combine all of the pieces into a single paper at the end of the project.

3.1Ideas and Discussion of your paper with title, abstract, and introduction

Week 4 Blackboard – Ideas for your paper

Upload a document with at least three ideas that you’re considering so that I can verify that your topic is in microeconomics and is reasonable for this assignment.  Provide at least three articles that are relevant to each of your ideas.

Week 6 Blackboard – Title, abstract, JEL codes and keywords, introductory paragraphy

The purpose of this assignment is for you to articulate the question that you plan to address in your paper. The more specific you are in framing your question, the easier it will be for you to answer the question.

By this time, you should have spent some time thinking about your topic and what specific question you plan to address in your paper. You can find topics by reading the newspaper, specialized journals such as The Economist and the journals at places like the IMF, NBER, etc.

You should have browsed through the literature to get an idea of the kinds of studies that have already been done in this area.  This process will also help you find out whether there are data available on this topic (many good ideas don’t have good data available because, for example, the data would come from a private company).

Your paper should answer a specific question.  The title of your paper should be in the form of “How does X affect Y.”  For example, “How do state and local taxes affect business location decisions:  Evidence from the U.S. states.”

3.2a Voice Thread 1

Week 7 Blackboard – Voice Thread 1

The purpose of this VoiceThread is to frame your question in your first VoiceThread.

Your first VoiceThread should have about 6 slides:  A title slide with your paper title and your name and date, five slides that present your question and identify the issues, and a fifth slide that presents questions that you have regarding your paper.  Use this VT to ask your classmates for help with your topic and data.

You should upload your first VoiceThread to Blackboard using the format for naming your file:

Last name, first name, VT1, Title

e.g., Weiner, Joann, VT1, How taxes affect business investment

Week 6 In Class

You will present your idea in class to obtain feedback from your classmates.

3.2b Comment on Three Voice Threads

Week 8 Blackboard – Comments on Voice Threads

You should view and comment on the first VoiceThread of at least three other classmates. Commenting on what your classmates are working on will help them improve their papers. Reading the comments on your VoiceThread will help you identify areas of improvement for your work.  Use this assignment to help each other improve your work.

3.3 Literature Review and Data

Week 10 Blackboard – Literature review and references

The purpose of this assignment is for you to summarize what other researchers have found and identify these papers in your reference section. You should have conducted a brief literature review AND listed this literature in the references section of your paper. Take the time NOW to format your references properly. You should write the literature review in a way that can be inserted into your paper.  Your literature review should identify the results the authors found and how your paper will differ from previous work.

The literature review will help you identify the kinds of charts and tables that you can use in your paper. It also should help you identify data sources, which will be helpful if you are also using this paper in your econometrics class.

Your references should be properly formatted and in alphabetical order!  Spend the time now to format your references properly so that you can put this part of the assignment aside as completed!  You may use your choice of formatting styles as long as you use the same style throughout the references.

Week 12 Blackboard - Data and Charts/Tables

Discuss your data and identify sources.  Your paper should include a summary data table that shows the average, minimum, maximum and standard deviation and any other tables that describe your data.  You should have one chart that shows the correlation between your dependent variable and your main independent variable.

All of your charts should have titles, a clear legend, and the sources of the data in your charts. Make sure that your charts can be read if the paper is printed in black and white rather than color

3.4a Draft Paper

Week 13 Blackboard – draft paper

By now, you should have a full draft of your paper.  Upload your draft paper to Blackboard and email copies of your draft paper to each of your discussants.

Your draft paper should be as complete as possible so that you can benefit from the comments that I and your classmates will make on your paper.

Upload your paper in Word, not as a PDF, so that it’s easy for your classmates to comment in the document.

3.4b Comments and Rubrics for Draft Papers

Week 14 – Meet with professor and email and upload your comments on your classmates’ papers and Rubric 1

You will meet with me to discuss my comments on your draft paper. I will return your draft paper with my comments and set up a WebEx meeting to discuss your draft paper with you.

You will evaluate papers from two of your classmates. You should arrange to meet with your classmates to discuss your comments.

In addition to making your comments directly in the paper, use Rubric 1 to make specific comments.

You should evaluate the paper as if you were writing a formal referee report. Provide detailed comments designed to help your classmate improve the paper.

Upload to BB the draft paper with comments and the rubric and email them to your classmates. BB has folders for your comments for each paper.

3.5 VoiceThread 2

Week 15 Blackboard – upload VT 2

You will present your paper in your second VoiceThread in lieu of an in-person presentation.  Thus, your video should be presented alongside the slide that you are discussing.  (Depending on our classroom situation, I may ask you to make these presentations synchronously in class.)

Use the following format when saving your file. It is important that you upload your file in this format so that your two presentations appear next to each other.

Last name, first name VT2, Title

e.g., Weiner, Joann, VT2, How taxes affect where companies invest

Make sure you follow the naming convention listed above so that your two VoiceThreads are next to each other in the folder and in alphabetical order by your last name and first name. You will be marked down on this assignment if you do not follow these instructions.

Week 16 Blackboard – Comments on VoiceThread 2

You should comment on at least three different VoiceThreads.  The more substantive your comments, the higher your grade will be on this part of the assignment. Use Rubric 3 to make comments.

4.0 Final Paper and related material

Week 16 Blackboard - Upload final paper

You should upload your final paper and the draft with my comments.

I will grade your final paper on

1) the quality and content of your writing, including your graphs,

2) how effectively you incorporate comments from your peers and from me, and

3) how well you follow the guidelines.

I will evaluate your paper using the guidelines in Rubric 2.

4.1 Summary of Key Dates

Week 4 Upload ideas for your paper

Week 6 Upload title page, with abstract, JEL codes and keywords, and an annotated outline

Week 7 Upload VoiceThread 1

Week 8 Comment on at least 3 VTs

Week 10 Upload literature review and bibliography

Week 12 Upload discussion of data

Week 13 Upload draft paper and SEND copies to your reviewers

Week 14 Comments and rubric for draft papers that you are reviewing (give to classmates)

Meet with professor to discuss draft

Week 15 Upload VT 2

Week 16 Upload your final paper, the draft papers with my comments. Comment on three VTs and upload Rubric 3.

4.2 Grading rubrics

The grading rubrics appear below. Students use Rubric 1 to evaluate the draft paper. Points and comments that students give to each other on the draft paper do not form part of your grade. Students should use this rubric to provide an assessment of the draft paper and to provide suggestions on how to improve the paper.  I will provide assessment on your draft paper with written comments and via a WebEx meeting.

I will use the criteria listed in Rubric 2 to evaluate your final paper.

You will use Rubric 3 to evaluate the presentation.