ECON 606 Research Methodology Course outline and reading list. September 2011

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1 Professor Anindya Sen Hagey Hall, Room 241 Phone (519) , ext ECON 606 Research Methodology Course outline and reading list September 2011 Website: Class Schedule: 2:30-3:50 MW, DWE 3519 Office hours: Monday and Wednesday 1pm 2:20 pm. If this is not conducive to your schedule, please feel free to me so that we can set up an appointment. Course Structure and Grading The objective of this course is to impart professional research skills that are useful, and sometimes necessary for an economist. I will discuss simple empirical methods that might be employed to address policy questions of interest to the private and public sector. However, this is not a course in applied econometrics. The goal of the course is to teach students how to conduct research and eventually produce an informative and educative study. Statistical models and techniques are simply the pedagogical routes that I choose to impart my understanding of research methodology. In this context, I will discuss the basic steps of what I think constitutes successful research; (1) How to identify interesting problems (2) How do I find my data? Or Creating your own dataset (3) What constitutes robust research? And perhaps the most important, (4) Effective and efficient writing or How To Write a Paper 101 or How do I communicate the results of my research? A significant portion of the course will focus on basic writing skills. Professor Ron Champion (rchampio@watarts.uwaterloo.ca) will be teaching writing skills on the following days: October 17 th, 19 th, 24 th, and 26 th. A teaching assistant will work closely to help improve your writing through individual sessions that will be scheduled by Professor Champion. These sessions will be scheduled after October 27 th. 1

2 However, writing does not merely consist of correct grammar. The best papers are often brief, to the point, and yet a compelling read. I will try my best to teach some tricks of the trade based on my own experience. This will be done by showing you how I write my research papers- starting from the introduction, and followed by the literature review and description of key empirical results. In this context, research is not restricted to producing an independent empirical study. Economists in the public and private sector are expected to produce concise and informative briefs that are intended to inform policymakers. We will spend some part of the course discussing how to produce such briefs. Finally, I would like to emphasize that although most of your time should be spent on micro, macro, and econometrics this is not course lite. Lecture attendance is compulsory. As you are graduate students I do not expect you to skip a lecture to complete an assignment that is due for another course or because you feel that you need more time to study for a test. If you are sick, I expect to receive a courtesy that you are unable to attend. I will deduct 1% from your final grade if I do not receive a satisfactory explanation for your absence. Grading will be based on: (1) A research paper due on the final class, worth 45% of the final grade. Separate guidelines will be issued for the research paper. You are expected to confirm your topic with me (through ) by October 19 th. (2) Two assignments, each worth 10% of the final mark. The first assignment will be empirical, in order to ensure that students are knowledgeable in basic estimation methods. The specific computer language is STATA- which is the most widely used statistics package for economists. Basic STATA programming will be taught in class. (3) The second assignment will consist of a literature review for your research paper, worth 10% of your final grade. This assignment will be marked by Professor Champion s teaching assistant and will form the basis of his individual coaching sessions. This literature review must be submitted in class on November 2 nd. (4) There will be a final exam based on classroom discussions to test your knowledge of papers that are discussed in class. This will be 25% of your grade and the exam will be on Friday, November 25 th. (5) The final 10% will be awarded for two research briefs. There is no required textbook. Professor Xu is using Green for ECON 621, which is good. Personally, I would heavily recommend Mostly harmless econometrics: an empiricist's companion by Joshua David Angrist and Jörn-Steffen Pischke (2009) as a must have for any professional economist. 2

3 Reading List (This list is in part based on Steven Levitt s former 421 course at the University of Chicago) 1. Paper writing 101 Greenstone, Michael and Kenneth Chay, Does air quality matter? Evidence from the housing market., Journal of Political Economy, Greenstone, Michael and Justin Gallaghar Does Hazardous Waste Matter? Evidence from the Housing Market and the Superfund Program, Quarterly Journal of Economics, August 2008, Vol. 123, No. 3, Pages Greenstone, Michael and Kenneth Chay, The Impact of Air Pollution on Infant Mortality: Evidence from Geographic Variation in Pollution Shocks Induced by a Recession., Quarterly Journal of Economics, Douglas Almond, Yuyu Chen, Michael Greenstone, Hongbin Li. (2009) Winter Heating or Clean Air? Unintended Impacts of China's Huai River Policy. American Economic Review 99:2, Hsieh, Chang-Tai, and Enrico Moretti, Can Free Entry be Inefficient? Fixed Commisions and Social Waste in the Real Estate Industry, Journal of Political Economy Dixit, Avinash, My System of Work (Not!), American Economist, 38(1), (Spring 1994): Hamermesh, Daniel, The Craft of Labormetrics, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 53(3), (April 2000): Edward Leamer, Let's Take the Con out of Econometrics, American Economic Review, March 1983, 73(1), pp Identifying interesting problems Brown, Jeffrey and Austan Goolsbee, Does the Internet Make Markets More Competitive? Evidence from the Life Insurance Industry, Journal of Political Economy, June 2002, 110(3), pp D Almond, B Mazumder, The 1918 influenza pandemic and subsequent health outcomes: an analysis of SIPP data, American Economic Review,

4 Almond Douglas Is the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Over? Long-term Effects of In Utero Influenza Exposure in the Post-1940 U.S. Population, Journal of Political Economy, Oster, Emily. The Power of TV: Cable Television and Women's Status in India (with Robert Jensen)., Quarterly Journal of Economics, August Oster, Emily. Does Increased Access Increase Equality? Gender and Child Health Investments in India., Journal of Development Economics, May Zivin, Joshua Graff & Thirumurthy, Harsha & Goldstein, Markus, AIDS treatment and intrahousehold resource allocation: Children's nutrition and schooling in Kenya, Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages , August. Markus Goldstein & Christopher Udry, The Profits of Power: Land Rights and Agricultural Investment in Ghana, Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 116(6), pages , December. Gruber, Jonathan, 2010, Do Strikes Kill? Evidence from New York State, (with Samuel Klein), NBER Working Paper w Tweaking research with identifiable flaws Duggan, Mark, More Guns, More Crime, Journal of Political Economy, 109 (October 2001): Oster, Emily, Hepatitis B and the Case of the Missing Women, Journal of Political Economy, December 2005, 113 (6), Lin, Ming-Jen and Ming-Ching Luoh, Can Hepatitis B Mothers Account for the Number of Missing Women? Evidence from Three Million Newborns in Taiwan, American Economic Review, Oster, Emily, Hepatitis B Does Not Explain Male-Biased Sex Ratios in China (with Gang Chen et al), Economics Letters, forthcoming. Friedberg, Leora, 1998, Did Unilateral Divorce Raise Divorce Rates? Evidence from Panel Data, American Economic Review 88: Acemoglu, Daron, Simon Johnson and James A. Robinson. The Colonial Origins Of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation, American Economic Review, 2001, v91(5,dec),

5 Albouy, David. The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation: Comment. Forthcoming American Economic Review. Acemoglu, Daron Hither Thou Shalt Come, But No Further: Reply to "The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation: Comment with Simon Johnson, James A. Robinson: NBER working paper w16966 Wolfram Schlenker, Working paper, "Climate Change and Agriculture Reconsidered". Appendix "Climate Change and Agriculture Reconsidered: Appendix". Wolfram Schlenker, The Economic Impacts of Climate Change: Evidence from Agricultural Output and Random Fluctuations in Weather: Comment American Economic Review, forthcoming (with Anthony C. Fisher, W. Michael Hanemann, and Michael J. Roberts) Deschenes and Greenstone (2007) The Economic Impacts of Climate Change: Evidence from Agricultural Output and Random Fluctuations in Weather, American Economic Review, 97(1), March 2007, p Schlenker, Hanemann, and Fisher (2006) The Impact of Global Warming on U.S. Agriculture: An Econometric Analysis of Optimal Growing Conditions, Review of Economics and Statistics, 88(1), February 2006, p Schlenker, Hanemann, and Fisher (2005) Will U.S. Agriculture Really Benefit from Global Warming? Accounting for Irrigation in the Hedonic Approach, American Economic Review, 95(1), March 2005, p Finding new data or creating your own dataset Sorensen, Alan, Equilibrium Price Dispersion in Retail Markets for Prescription Drugs, Journal of Political Economy v108, n4 (August 2000): Miron, Jeff, 2003, Do Prohibitions Raise Prices? Evidence from the Market for Cocaine, Review of Economics and Statistics, August 2003, 85(3), McMillan, John, and Pablo Zoido, 2004, How to Subvert Democracy: Montesinos in Peru, Journal of Economic Perspectives 18 (4), Fall 2004, Karpoff, Jonathan, 2001, Public versus Private Initiative in Arctic Exploration: The Effects of Incentives and Organizational Structure, Journal of Political Economy 109: New and better sources of identification 5

6 Rosenzweig, Mark and Wolpin, Kenneth, Natural Natural Experiments in Economics, Journal of Economic Literature v38, n4 (December 2000): Angrist, Joshua D., and Alan B. Krueger Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 15(4): Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol. 24, No. 2, Spring 2010 Symposium: Con out of Economics The Credibility Revolution in Empirical Economics: How Better Research Design Is Taking the Con out of Econometrics (pp. 3-30) Joshua D. Angrist and Jörn-Steffen Pischke Tantalus on the Road to Asymptopia (pp ) Edward E. Leamer A Structural Perspective on the Experimentalist School (pp ) Michael P. Keane But Economics Is Not an Experimental Science (pp ) Christopher A. Sims Taking the Dogma out of Econometrics: Structural Modeling and Credible Inference (pp ) Aviv Nevo and Michael D. Whinston The Other Transformation in Econometric Practice: Robust Tools for Inference (pp ) James H. Stock 6. Lab and field experiments Journal of Economic Perspectives Vol. 25, No. 3, Summer 2011 Symposium: Field Experiments Why Economists Should Conduct Field Experiments and 14 Tips for Pulling One Off (pp. 3-16) John A. List Mechanism Experiments and Policy Evaluations (pp ) Jens Ludwig, Jeffrey R. Kling and Sendhil Mullainathan 6

7 The Role of Theory in Field Experiments (pp ) David Card, Stefano DellaVigna and Ulrike Malmendier Field Experiments with Firms (pp ) Oriana Bandiera, Iwan Barankay and Imran Rasul List, John, 2007, On the Interpretation of Giving in Dictator Games, Journal of Political Economy, 115, Gintis, Herb, Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd, Samuel Bowles, Colin Camerer, Ernst Fehr, and Richard McElreath, 2001, In Search of Homo Economicus: Behavioral Experiments in 15 Small Scale Societies, American Economic Review v91, n2 (May 2001): Levitt, Steven, Viewpoint: On the Generalizability of Lab Behavior in the Field. Canadian Journal of Economics, 2007, 40(2): Levitt, Steven, What Do Laboratory Experiments Measuring Social Preferences Reveal about the Real World? Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2007, 21(2), pp (with List, John A.) 8. Self Plagiarism by Academics: The Bruno Frey affair 9. Canadian Policy Issues Readings Sen, Anindya, Estimating the Effects of Cigarette Taxes on Birth Outcomes, with Emmanuelle Pierard, conditionally accepted, Canadian Public Policy Sen, Anindya, Teen employment, poverty, and the minimum wage: evidence from Canada, with Corey Van De Waal and Kathleen Rybczynzki, forthcoming, Labour Economics Sen, Anindya, Obesity, smoking, and cigarette taxes: evidence from the Canadian Community Health Surveys, with Mahdiyeh Entezarkheir and Alan Wilson, forthcoming, Health Policy Sen, Anindya, Intergenerational correlations in educational attainment: birth order and family size effects from Canada., with Anthony Clemente, forthcoming, Economics of Education Review 7

8 Oreopoulos, Philip, Do dropouts drop out too soon? Wealth, health and happiness from compulsory schooling, Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(11-12), pages , December Philip Oreopoulos, The compelling effects of compulsory schooling: evidence from Canada, Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 39(1), pages 22-52, February Philip Oreopoulos, Why Do Skilled Immigrants Struggle in the Labour Market? A Field Experiment with Sixty Thousand Resumes. Skuterud, Mikal. The Visible Minority Wage Gap Across Generations of Canadians, Canadian Journal of Economics 43(3), August 2010, Pendakur, Ravi, Pendakur, Krishna. The colour of money: wage differentials across ethnic groups, Canadian Journal of Economics , Grammar and Writing Alred, Gerald J., Charles T. Brusaw and Walter E. Oliu. Handbook of Technical Writing. New York: St. Martin s Press, Barber, Katherine, Editor. The Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Don Mills: Oxford University Press, Chicago Manual of Style. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Dundurn Press Limited. The Canadian Style: A Guide to Writing and Editing. Toronto: Pearson, Harris, Muriel and Judi Jewinski. Prentice Hall Reference Guide for Canadian Writers. Toronto: Pearson, Strunk, William, and E.B. White. The Elements of Style. New York: Longman, Tasko, Patti, Editor. The Canadian Press Stylebook: A Guide for Writing and Editing. Toronto: The Canadian Press, Avoidance of Academic Offenses All students registered in the courses of the Faculty of Arts are expected to know what constitutes an academic offense, to avoid committing academic offenses, and to take responsibility for their academic actions. When the commission of an offense is established, disciplinary penalties will be imposed in accord with Policy #71, Student Academic Discipline. For information on categories of offenses and types of penalties, 8

9 students are directed to consult the summary of Policy #71, Student Academic Discipline If you need help in learning how to avoid offenses such as plagiarism, cheating, and double submission, or if you need clarification of aspects of the discipline policy, ask your course instructor for guidance. Other resources regarding the discipline policy are the graduate advisor and the Associate Dean of Graduate Affairs. Students who believe that they have been wrongfully or unjustly penalized have the right to grieve; refer to Policy #70, Student Grievance 9