The alternative option comprises a short paper or well-developed research proposal in which you will begin to pursue a piece of novel academic research in the topics of this class. It could be about growth, business cycles, financial crises, or any other of the topics covered in the class (or even in its periphery, subject to approval). And it could be a piece of theory, an empirical exercise, or some combination thereof.

This option is more open-ended than the default one. This has both costs and benefits. You will have less guidance but also more room to experiment. It is probably best suited for those students who wish to develop research skills, perhaps with a view to undertaking graduate studies in economics. The form of this paper will be by arrangement with your teaching assistant, who will delineate clear expectations in the context of your specific research idea. You may also ask about areas you are interested in, and the TA can guide you in formulating your own research ideas. The alternative option is due in three installments, too, but must first be approved by the TA. If you wish to pursue this path, you should consult with the TA as soon as possible and, in any case, no later than the week before the first proposal is due. A brief one-page research proposal will constitute 10% of the grade. A first draft of the paper will constitute 50% of the grade. The final draft of the paper will constitute the remaining 40% of the grade. Paper assignments that are up to 12 hours late will be penalized with a loss of 50% of the grade. Late submission beyond this 12-hour window will result in a complete loss. We reserve the right to overweight the final draft if it shows substantial improvement relative to the proposal and/or the first draft.

Project Selection and Approval

You should consult with the TA regarding your research idea, or to ask him for areas which it may be fruitful for you to pursue. Once he has approved your idea, you will begin fleshing it out more clearly, leading up to submitting the brief research proposal.

Brief Research Proposal

Your one-page research proposal should first clearly delineate the research question that you will aim to answer. This should be specific enough to facilitate rigorous study. You should then outline and overview the related literature and clarify the relationship between your proposed research question and what has already been done. This should make clear what your novel contribution will be. You should then describe in some detail how you will answer this question. For example, if you are doing something empirical, you should detail what data sets you will use, what regressions you will run, and how you will test your hypotheses. If you are doing something theoretical, you should sketch what elements your model would comprise and indicate what kinds of results you will try to prove. If you are doing “hybrid work” with both an empirical and theoretical component, you should do both the above and explain clearly how your theory and empirics are related. 

First Draft

The first draft of your paper should detail your progress to date in carrying out the research proposal. It should include an introduction in which your research question is motivated and explicated, your subsequent analysis summarized, and your conclusions described. Naturally, research evolves as you carry it out, and you should not be afraid to modify the approach you first suggested. In this case, you should explain what you have now decided to do, and why you found your former approach to be lacking. It should include a thorough literature review in which you situate your paper in the related literature and explain your contribution relative to that literature. It should then begin to develop your theoretical and/or empirical strategies. In a theory paper, you might first develop a model, then prove your theoretical results or state properly formulated conjectures. In an empirical paper, you should describe the data you have collected, formulate your empirical strategy for testing your hypothesis, and include preliminary results or exploratory data analysis. Research is hard, so we do not expect a perfectly crafted paper at this stage (or in the end), but we do expect you to have made progress in developing the ideas from your research proposal into a piece of rigorous economic analysis.

Final Draft

The final draft of the paper should be a complete piece of writing, detailing your question, findings, and analysis to date. This should include an introduction in which your research question is motivated and explicated, your analysis is summarized, and your conclusions described. It should include a thorough literature review in which you situate your paper in the related literature and explain your contribution relative to that literature. You should then detail your theoretical and/or empirical analysis. In the case of a theoretical paper, we would expect a complete and formally described economic model and some preliminary results and conjectures that answer your question. In the case of an empirical paper, we would expect you to describe your data, formulate your empirical strategy, and present preliminary empirical results. In a hybrid paper, you might develop the theory and describe how you would test that theory, or document some empirical findings and sketch more loosely a theory to explain those findings. All research papers are different, and you should discuss with the TA how you plan to proceed and what the expectations will be.