ASSIGNMENT

Introduction

The econometrics project will be an opportunity to apply the concepts learned in class to write an empirical paper on a topic of choice. Students will need to select a topic, formulate a research question, and apply the analytical and quantitative skills acquired in this course to a data set to answer the question.

Your research paper should attempt to make a contribution to the existing literature, such as:

• Add a new variable that hasn’t been studied before to an existing model
• Study an existing question with more recent data
• Use a new data set for an existing paper to study a question for a different geography other than the original
• Find a completely new question (hard but possible)

In addition to the empirical analysis, students will have to write a paper on the subject, with the following sections: introduction, literature review, data, methodology, results and analysis, and conclusion.

Software

You must use STATA for the econometrics project. STATA is designed as a general-purpose statistical package and has a powerful built-in graphing capability. You can access STATA via FIU’s eLabs (Links to an external site.). Alternatively, temporary, and perpetual licenses can be purchased from the STATA website (Links to an external site.).

Paper Structure

The paper should have the following 6 sections:

Abstract

This section is a concise summary of your paper. It should be about 10 sentences of what your topic is, the results, and the conclusion.

Introduction

In this section you discuss the topic, why it’s important, and should have a literature review part where you review what previous research on the topic discusses

Data

In this section you describe your dataset. You should also include one or more tables or graphs in this section with summary statistics.

Methods

In this section you describe the method used (OLS, etc.), and is where you specify your regression formula. You should also explain why your regression equation was implemented the way you defined it, and how you believe your explanatory variables and controls are adequate.

Results

In this section you will discuss your results (in plain English). You would report your regression results in a table, and then go over the interpretation of the regression coefficients, from a mathematical point of view, and more importantly, from an economic point of view.