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Conducting Empirical Research and Publishing in International Journals. Holly Wang Workshop at CAU December 15, 2010. Procedures of Conducting Empirical Research. Choose your topic Build a team Review literature Economic models Collect and clean data Econometric method Analyze
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Conducting Empirical Research and Publishing in International Journals Holly Wang Workshop at CAU December 15, 2010
Procedures of Conducting Empirical Research • Choose your topic • Build a team • Review literature • Economic models • Collect and clean data • Econometric method • Analyze • Write papers Grant proposal
Choose Your Topic • What is the hot topic currently? • Funding availability • Easiness in publishing • Time lag • Is it important over the long run or just a fad? • What is your personal interest? • Motivated • Have background knowledge • Future career • Define the right scope of the topic • Do you have the capacity to handle it? • Do you have the time and resource to handle it?
Build A Team • Advisor: if you are a student • Is s/he the expert for the chosen topic? • Will s/he be able to give you enough time? • Is his/her advising style match your need? • Team members • Need one expert to cover each aspect of the project: economic model, econometric methods, field knowledge, policy knowledge, data collection resource • Willing to share the resource and credit • Have a clear role for each team member
Literature Review • Searching engine: • google scholar, econlit, etc. • Background and situation: • eg, GDP, and other statistics • Issues: • papers of similar topics: what have been done, and what have not been studied • identify gaps in literature • specific objectives to fill the gaps • Methods • papers with relevant methods that can be used
Economic Models • Microeconomic theory • supply theory, demand theory, derived demand • imperfect competition and game theory • general equilibrium and trade theory • Macroeconomic theory • growth model • Structure model vs reduced form • Variable selection suggested by the theory • Shifters, especially demographic variables • Testable hypothesis
Data • Based on theory, identify variables needed • Cross section vs time series • Location, size, time horizon • How aggregated • Survey design vs published data • Focus group • Random sampling • Data clean up
Econometric methods • Least square based regression • Tobit model for truncated data • Logit/Probit for qualitative dependent variables • Equation systems: SURE • Maximum loglikelihood estimation • Nonparametric
Analyze • Diagnose tests • Try alternative models specifications • Hypothesis • Results shall address the objectives • Explain results and compare with intuition
Paper Writing • Make a title to be concise and specific • Key words and abstract • Select a journal • Read a couple of recent issues • The topic is accepted by the journal • Impact factor, fees, fast review • Cite articles from the journal • Formatting for the journal • Submit
Paper Structure • Introduction (including background, literature review, objectives) • Model (theory) • Data (explain data collection methods, and variables, descriptive statistics) • Results • Conclusion (policy implication)