Economics 191: Topics in Economic Research, Fall 2022
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Economics 191: Topics in Economic Research, Fall 2022
Syllabus v1
This class provides a structure for students to write an original research paper in economics, while exposing them to frontier research by professors of the Department of Economics at UC Berkeley. Course grades are based on a series of research assignments that cumulate in a 20-25 page research paper. Students must choose a research question and begin refining that question, reviewing the literature, collecting data, and developing techniques to answer the research question relatively early in the term. The course requires continued engagement throughout the semester, with a series of tightly scheduled assignments. We do not recommend the course if you have trouble meeting deadlines. Meeting Structure. A typical three-hour session consists of a 60-90 minute faculty talk (given by one of the economics professors at UC Berkeley), followed by a 90 minute tutorial session (given by the GSIs). In the faculty talk, each week’s researcher presents research she or he has been working on. The researchers may share related reading material or slides ahead of the meeting, which we will share and announce via bCourses. In the tutorial session, the GSIs will present a series of lectures on basic methods for applied research. We will post the slides for the tutorials before the class meeting on the bCourses website. Students should review the slides before the meeting. Laptop, Phone and Tablet Policy. Out of respect to the guest speakers, who donate their time to Econ 191, no technology (laptops, phones, tablets) is permitted during the faculty. The only exceptions are DSP accommodations. To request an exception, reach out to the professor to request an exception, accompanied by a DSP letter. Graded Attendance. Again, because the faculty donate their time to give the evening lecture in Econ 191, our responsibility as a group is to encourage attendance and participation. Therefore, in-person attendance is mandatory and graded with “bonus points” both during the faculty talk and the tutorial; we may give bonus points for participation. To accommodate specific concerns, up to two absences are not penalized, no warning or excuse needed. So please do not email us with potential excuses if you fail to attend, as out of fairness to other students, we cannot extend this buffer and this system is to avoid adjudicating justified absences.
Tutorial Leaders and Research Mentors: the GSIs and Readers. The GSIs will lead the tutorials, which occur in the second part of each weekly session. Along with the GSIs, the Readers will serve as “research mentors” and meet with you to discuss your research. Economics 191 has two GSIs: Petra Laura Oreskovic [email protected] Alfredo Mendoza Fernandez [email protected]
and two Readers:
Jonas Knecht jonasknecht@berkeley.edu
Gerard Martin- Escofet gerard_martin@berkeley.edu
Research Mentor Office Hours:
Alfredo: Tuesday 9- 11amvia Zoom in https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/91234845799
Gerard: Friday 12:30- 14:30pm via Zoom in https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/7502613591
Jonas: Wednesday 12:00-2:00pm via Zoom in https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/5106610295
Petra: Thursday 11am-1pm in Evans 636 The OH schedule and the meeting modality may be adjusted during the term, with bCourses announcement. Research Paper. Each student will write a research paper addressing an important, well-formulated research question. Typically, the most successful papers are empirical, either they are descriptive or they aim to address a causal question, using econometric methods and addressing a question of economic interest. The required format is: 20-25 pages 12-point font 1-inch margins (left and right, top and bottom) Double spaced The file format must be a PDF file. It will be submitted through the course website (TBA). The page limit includes text, tables, figures, and references. If it strengthens your paper, you can, but do not have to, add an appendix with supplementary material (e.g., data appendix or additional robustness checks). But the main text of the paper (20-25 pages) should be self-contained. A reader should be able to understand the paper without reading the appendix, and skimming the appendix should suffice for a reader to grasp the paper. The Centrality of Empirical Work (Data Analysis). Research papers must include a formal data analysis. We do permit students to include in the brainstorming exercises at most one non-empirical idea in Assignments 1 and 2. However, for your final paper to not be empirical, you must obtain permission in advance from the GSI/Reader and the instructor, after Assignment 2. A 100% theoretical paper must be rigorous and mathematically based. Purely narrative papers will not be approved. For help with econometrics, we recommend: Adrian Colin Cameron and Pravin K. Trivedi, Microeconomics Using Stata, by Stata Press (available online), or James Stock’s Introduction to Econometrics textbook. Some of the early tutorial sessions will involve Stata exercises.
Stata and Other Statistical Programs. The campus has 20 concurrent licenses for Stata, which are free
for you to use https://software.berkeley.edu/stata. You can also purchase your own copy at a
discounted student price or obtain a one-week free student trial
https://www.stata.com/order/new/edu/gradplans/student-pricing/.
This same website contains recorded tutorials for using Stata. The campus Data Lab typically provides live Zoom tutorials for using Stata https://dlab.berkeley.edu/.
If you are competent using Python or R, that is also acceptable. It is highly unlikely that MS Excel will suffice for your final paper.
Academic Misconduct and Plagiarism. According to UC Berkeley’s honor code http://sa.berkeley.edu/conduct/integrity/definition, “As a member of the UC Berkeley community, I act with honesty, integrity, and respect for others.” We expect everyone to obey this code. Please additionally review the material on https://gsi.berkeley.edu/gsi-guide-contents/academic- misconduct-intro/ , especially the sections on plagiarism.
Duplication. The requirement for this course is to write an original research paper. You must not turn in a paper that duplicates or includes only a modest extension of a paper of yours prepared for another concurrent or previous course. When in doubt (i.e., if you have conducted research related to the 191 paper beforehand), email the professor before proposal v0 is due with a summary of the previous research (and attach any potential paper you already wrote).
Grading. The following table shows the points awarded for each assignment. The total number of points available is 110 (including 10 “bonus points” for attendance).
Assignment Points
Attendance 10 “bonus points”
Research brainstorming v1 5
Research brainstorming v2 5
Research proposal v0 10
Research proposal v1 10
Research proposal v2 10
Draft of results 15
Final paper 45
Content of Assignments and Deadlines
Page format for all submissions below is font size of 12, font Times New Roman or Arial, 1 inch margins. Single-spaced.
• 1: Brainstorming research questions
o Due: 4:30pm, Sept 8
o On 2 single-spaced pages, brainstorm 4 potential research questions. (You need not take any of those candidates for your actual proposal.) What is this question, why may this question be interesting or important, and what may be a way to tackle the question in a research paper (whether such an empirical designs are realistic or not)?
• 2: Brainstorming research questions
o Due: 4:30pm, Sept 22
o On 2 single-spaced pages, expand your brainstorming of 2 potential research questions in more detail than in Assignment 1. (At least one of them must be from your previous brainstorming assignment and incorporate the feedback from the Research Mentor.)
• 3: Proposal v0 due Friday
o Due: 4:30pm, Oct 6
o Now, commit to 1 research question. Unless you received an exception from your Research Mentor, this topic must be from the second brainstorming proposal.
o 1 page with 3 paragraphs :
§ Paragraph 1 (at most ¼ of the page) : statement of question
§ Paragraph 2: basic approach to answering this question (research design and strategy)
§ Paragraph 3: list and discuss of concrete data sources to be used in the question, including verification of data availability and accessibility
o Due: 4:30pm, Oct 20
o 3 pages
§ Page 1: revision of your 1 page proposal v0 (update it if needed)
§ Page 2:
• Literature review: cite and discuss existing research on this question
• Discuss problems with this evidence, or why you think evidence on this research question is insufficient
§ Page 3: explain why your approach is better or solves the problem you identify on page 2. (This could be methodology, or a new empirical context, or a new data set.)
• 5: Proposal v2
o Due: 4:30pm, Nov 3rd
o By this date, you should have your data set available and started analyzing it, and honed your research design.
o 7 pages
§ 3 pages: attach proposals v0 and v1 again (update if needed)
o Pages 4-7: present and summarize your data and research design.
§ Divide between (at least 1/3 of the 4 new pages for each) two topics:
• Discuss in detail the data you will use (how many observations? How many variables?). Ideally, you will have obtained the data and explored it. Report on your explorations. Are the data up to the task? Which problems do you see?
• Elaborate further on your research design: which concrete econometric model(s) you will estimate (what regression equation(s)), which control variables, be clear whether you have the data and why you need those controls, etc. How do you interpret your main regression coefficients? How will your regression model or empirical analysis answer your research question?
• 6: Overview of your data & initial results
o Due: 4:30pm, Nov 17
o Include the 7 pages of proposal v2 (and update if needed)
o Add 3 new pages of text + separately 2 pages at least containing the 3 tables/figures described below:
§ Table 1: summary statistics, e.g., means of key variables you will use and observation counts
§ Figure 1: key correlation or time series patterns in the data (e.g., time series graph, bar chart, pie chart, etc.)
o Initial, preliminary results from an empirical (econometric) analysis that implements your research design
§ Expand further the discussion of the econometric model you preview in Proposal v2. Now, describe the concrete empirical analysis you are conducting that underlie your first initial results.
§ Table 2: initial regression estimates
§ Describe these initial results. Interpret the magnitudes of the main coefficients, and how they change across different regression specifications (e.g., with and without controls). Discuss statistical significance and precision of the coefficients.
§ Provide a brief interpretation of your (initial, preliminary) results in light of your research question.
Deadlines and Late Assignments. For all assignments excluding the final paper, 20% of the points will be deducted for each day an assignment is late. You absolutely must turn in every assignment eventually. The deadlines for the assignments are below. Do not take this course if you cannot meet those deadlines.
The final paper must be turned in by 5:00 pm (PST) December 16, 2022. The final paper will not be accepted after the deadline. There will not be any extensions for the final paper. It is not possible to compress the writing of the paper, so you should spread out your writing over a prolonged period of time. No extensions will be allowed.
Regrades. Requests for regrades will be accepted for reasons of possible clerical error only, and will be handled by the professor only. In a typical year, zero regrades should be expected.
Four Special Meetings. We have four non-standard meetings. On 9/13, we will have a bonus meeting on time series econometrics (attendance not taken for this specific meeting as it meets during Zoom on a Tuesday evening); it will be recorded. On September 29th, we will have a double tutorial. On October 20th, you will sign up for one on one slots with your Research Mentor to discuss Assignment 3 (Proposal v0). In the last meeting on December 1st, we will have a brief open Q&A about last questions on paper writing, and potential (volunteer) student presentations. This final meeting will be used flexibly and its content may change.
2022-08-27