2nd Year Workshop: From idea to paper

Ian McCarthy, Emory University and NBER

Economics PhD Professionalism Workshop

From idea to “proposal”

Key steps

  1. What is the research question?
  2. What is the hook?
  3. What is your economic model or framework?
  4. What is your data and identification strategy?

1. The question

From Jesse Shapiro’s Four Steps to an Applied Micro Paper:

  • The question has an answer
  • The answer is not obvious
  • The answer is actionable/relevant

2. The hook

Why is your question important and relevant? This should be aimed at a general audience, not someone specific to your field and perhaps not even to an economist.

3. The model

  • Question should be specific enough so that you are able to write down a model, an equation, or a series of equations that would facilitate answering this question
  • Not simply a mathematical representation of your research question…it should help inform the empirical methods and variation you will be using

4. Data and identification strategy

  • What data do you plan to use?
  • Where is the variation in the data that will identify the effect of interest? How does such variation lend a credible identification strategy?
  • How does your data and identification address your original question?
  • Need to know that the data exists and how to access it (within a reasonable time period/cost)

Repeat

  • Repeat this process a handful of times
  • Discuss the ideas with classmates and faculty
  • Identify your best proposals and move to the next stage

The research plan

  • Plan consists of the proposal plus…
  • The “value-added”

The value-added

  • What do we know in the literature about this problem?
  • What are the relevant papers when it comes to the topic, methods, and data?
  • How exactly do you contribute to the literature, above and beyond what was already done?

Doing the same thing for a different population or using different methods or different data is not exciting unless the hook is related to the specific population, data, method, etc.

Starting the plan

  • Data management
  • Preliminary analysis
  • Aspirational introduction
  • Draft paper
  • See 3rd year workshop materials

Final plea

Please, please, please start thinking of research early and often. Brainstorm topics, read papers, talk to classmates and faculty. Iterate on ideas until you find something you can do. And DO NOT shy away from a challenge.