《计量经济学导论》Chapter 19.pptVIP

Chapter 19;Goal of this chapter Learn how to complete a term project/write a term paper Posing a question Knowing precisely what question you want to answer is essential You can only collect your data if you exactly know your question You can only know whether you can complete your project in the allotted time if you know whether the necessary data is available You can only know if your research question is of interest to someone if you can precisely state it and discuss it with your class mates/instructor;Finding interesting research questions Choose the area of economics/social sciences you are interested in Examples for typical research questions Labor Economics: Explaining wage differentials Public Economics: Effect of taxes on economic activity Education Economics: Effect of spending on school performance Macroeconomics: Effect of investment on GNP growth Look for published papers on the chosen topic using tools such as EconLit, Google Scholar, the Journal of Economic Literature (JEL) etc.;Your research project should add something new Add a new variable whose influence has not been studied before Expand economic questions to include factors from other sciences Study an existing question for more recent data (may be boring) Use a new data set or study a question for a different country Try out new/alternative methods to study an old question Find a completely new question (hard but possible) It helps if your research question is policy relevant or of local interest;Literature review A literature review is important to place your paper into context Use online search services to systematically search for literature When searching, think of related topics that may also be relevant A literature review can be part of introduction or a separate section Data collection Most questions can be addressed using alternative types of data (pure cross-sections, repeated cross-sections, time series, panels);Deciding on the appropriate data set Many questions can in principl