Paper Proposal-econ4a
Part I
In the first part of your proposal describe in a few lines the topic you want to work on and the economic question. You must state the economic question. Be as specific as you can.
Part II
For one of your articles/papers, provide a summary, in bullet-form, covering the following eight items:
a complete citation and a web link (if available).
justify how the paper/article meets the criteria described in sections II.2.1, II.2.2 and II.2.3
the main economic question being investigated in the paper/article
briefly explain how the paper/article is related to your research question.
economic policy(ies) that are related to the paper/article
the data [sources, periods, countries/provinces/states covered, type (observational, experimental)]
method of analysis used (if multivariate regression, tell me what the dependent variable is and which are the independent variables)
the paper/article’s main conclusions
Part III
For the other 2 papers/article you plan to review please do the following:
provide a complete citation and a web link.
justify how the paper/article meets the criteria described in sections II.2.1, II.2.2 and II.2.3.
briefly explain how the paper/article directly relates to your research topic.
Final note: Your 3 key papers/articles must meet all of the criteria in sections II.2.1, II.2.2 and II.2.3.
I. Selection of Review Paper Question
Your individual paper will consist of a critical review of three articles or research papers that use data and analytical methods to test economic hypotheses or answer economic questions.
You may consider a wide range of economic topics. While you cannot use articles listed in the course outline, it is a good idea to use the lists of references from course articles to find related articles.
Always try to formulate a question to answer even if that is implicit in your title as in examples 2) and 3) below.
Examples of Topics from Previous Years.
Do Intellectual Property Rights Truly Promote Innovation and Economic Growth in Developing Countries?
An Investigation into the Effects of Incentives on Academic Performance
An Investigation into the Causal Relationship Between Technological Advancement and Wealth Inequality
The McMaster library staff prepared videos on many research related topics. You can find those videos at
https://library.mcmaster.ca/research/how-library-stuff-works
There is one video on “How to choose an essay topic”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjOZtHqb_q0&list=PLjB7x34VHLf5ooJegDE5Jmt4V7iE8tm50&index=23
If you are really struggling to find a question think of 2 variables that you think may be related and look for articles examining causality between them.
II. Selection of Scholarly Articles or Research Papers to Review
II.1 General Guidelines
You are to review only academic research which generally appears in one of two forms:
Articles (a.k.a papers) published in refereed academic journals. To learn more about the refereeing process watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4JJbkpLPQI&index=18&list=PLjB7x34VHLf5ooJegDE5Jmt4V7iE8tm50
Research papers (sometimes also referred to as “working papers” or “discussion papers) are issued by well recognized university departments of economics, not-for-profit research institutes (such as the Institute for Research on Public Policy in Montreal or the National Bureau of Economic Research in the US), and government research organizations such as Statistics Canada.
Unacceptable articles include but are not limited to the following:
Articles in newspapers and magazines.
Articles by politicians, political parties, unions, business groups, or advocacy organizations whose principal objective is not to “get the right answer” but to influence public policy. Such papers constitute “advocacy research”, i.e., evidence favoring one’s position is highlighted and evidence not favoring one’s position is ignored or minimized. There is no intent to be unbiased. Academic research is inevitably biased, given that it is authored by human beings, BUT the goal is to be as unbiased as possible.
Most web-sites unless you are downloading a paper which classifies under one of the two categories listed at the beginning of section II.1.
Publications which simply report data (employment levels or life expectancies) are not analytic papers. Analytic papers attempt to answer some economic question about the relationship between variables.
Very short research papers (referred to as “letters” or “notes”)
No survey or literature review papers should be one of your three main articles. i.e you should not be reviewing a literature review!
The handout Searching the web, EconLit and Social Sciences Citation Index teaches you how to search for scholarly articles and how to assess the quality of the information on the web. Read that handout and start looking for articles and research papers.
Ensure you read the abstract, the introduction, and conclusion of the articles and research papers you are proposing to review. Make sure they are closely related to the question you want to answer. It is NOT expected that you understand all of the article -especially the first time round- much of the material both theoretical and empirical will be quite technical.
For tips on how to read scholarly articles, watch the following video prepared by McMaster library staff
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oq6RiJLlzlk
II.2 More Specific Guidelines
II.2.1 Not All Academic Research Qualifies
We want to establish some lower bounds on the quality of the articles and research papers you will review. Here are guidelines to follow:
Journal articles must be published in a journal that appears in the top 250 publications listed at https://ideas.repec.org/top/top.journals.simple.html
If the paper is not yet published-i.e. you select a working paper, you must check the credentials of the author(s). Has the author (or one of the authors) published in the top 250 journals? If not, you must reject the paper.
II.2.2 Types of Analysis:
You must select papers containing data analysis.
Purely theoretical papers (i.e. containing no data analysis) are not appropriate.
Bivariate Analysis Bivariate analysis means using simple graphs of time trends in variables or correlations between two variables (earnings and schooling) or differences in average values between two groups (difference in average earnings between university and high school graduates). Papers which us only bivariate analysis is generally not acceptable. It is acceptable in the context of an experiment in which random assignment of individuals to treatment and control groups makes such simple comparisons appropriate.
Multivariate Analysis. The most familiar example of this is multiple regression where one estimates the relationship between some dependent variable, such as earnings, and a series of independent variables or determinants such as schooling, age, sex, year, occupation and size of city. This kind of analysis is always acceptable.
II.2.3 Types of Data used in the Papers you are Reviewing.
Acceptable Types of Data.
Experimental data:
Laboratory experiment: an experiment designed and run by social scientists in a laboratory setting.
Social Experiment: data from a large scale experiment designed and run by social scientists in order to test some policy innovation. Participants know they are in an experiment.
Field experiment – a small scale experiment designed and run by social scientist in a real world setting. Participants often do not know they are in an experiment.
Observational Data: real world data from a survey (Labour Force Survey or Census) or administrative source (such as health care records or tax data).
A Natural Experiment refers to a set of observational data that measures some real world phenomenon that the researcher believes closely approximates the differences that one would observe between treatment and control groups in an experimental setting. Common examples are differences in government policies (such as tax rates or public health insurance) between provinces or countries or changes in such policies over time.
What about simulated data? A paper that relies exclusively on simulation data is not acceptable.
