From the collection of academic papers that we’ve read this semester, we now have a sense of what Economic research looks like. With this awareness, it’s easy to feel that the task of writing a final paper is quite daunting — so many moving parts, so much coding, so much data cleaning.
While there’s certainly no way around the amount of work that goes into a final paper, I think there’s a way to frame the task so that you feel not only is it feasible but actually one where you can produce really great work. In what follows, I’ve attempted to provide a rough framework for how to write the paper. I’d suggest that you use this as a guide. I am of course am happy to answer specific questions as they arise throughout the writing process.
It’s important to start by conceptualizing the central challenge in writing an Economics paper. How to generate insight? As we’ve emphasized through the semester, the general tradeoff is between the importance of the topic and the credibility of the analysis. The more important the topic, like the privatization of Government Sponsored Enterprise, the less credible the analysis. Because we’re interested in understanding important issues, the real challenge becomes how to draw insight from a context where there’s limitations and ambiguities about the data analysis.
If there was a straightforward way to handle this challenge, this class probably wouldn’t exist.
Together these quotes motivate us to (1) push the envelope in our research and (2) to recognize that there’s going to “great” uncertainty about what we produce.