EconS 529 Research Methods Fall semester Introductory Lecture

Syllabus On line at You are expected to read through it carefully and be aware of assignments and due dates. – I will not necessarily remind you of due dates – I will not accept late assignments without prior permission This is where I will communicate with you, so look for changes or announcements, which will show up at the top of the page.

Go to syllabus and discuss

While the course focuses on research papers, the lessons learned apply to all analysis and jobs. The main difference may be that in research positions you often need to come up with your ideas, while staff jobs often tell you what to research, but you will still need to understand how to do good analysis Something to remember: Science is built up from facts, as a house is with stones. But a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house." Henri Poincare

Lessons from the readings for today: Romer’s Rules for successfully finishing your graduate program in 5 years applies to research and analysis in your careers. – Write, write, write. If you wait to write until you know what you are doing, you’ll never get started. But be aware of what Paul Weis of Yale said, “I’m not as bright as my students. I find I have to think before I write.” Think before you write. – If you don’t get started, start to be concerned, and eventually panic. – Good research have three characteristics A view point: While we try to be objective, you also have to have a purpose. A lever: The research uses tools to make its point. A result: The research adds to our understanding.

Ma talks about modern economics. His critique of modern topics is “tongue in cheek” because all the questions he mentions are about resource allocation. His conclusions fall into a few broad categories – Economics is about everything. – Modeling is how economists communicate. We are a discipline because we share the same methodology. Models always have assumptions. Assumptions drive the results. We abstract, simplify and analyze. We use mathematics, statistics, intuition and experiments. Most analysis includes some data, but also is based on abstraction that simplifies the problem (eg, choosing jobs based on wages) A common, but not absolute paradigm is optimizing behavior. Need not be selfish. Models can include altruism. – Read and learn from papers, not texts. Learn how to motivate and learn techniques by reading state of the art papers. Digest new working papers for inspiration. Work through the proofs, don’t just read them.

Ma (continued) – To convince yourself that you understand the paper, explain it to someone else. – To understand an issue or topic, read several papers on the it. – Economics can be very mathematical and you need a mathematical maturity that few undergraduates have managed to acquire. Understand definitions, assumptions, implications Understand the logical steps to derive results. Y Understand the difference between proofs and conjectures, and mostly between proofs and implications. Be able to go from intuition to a proof by building a model based on reasonable assumptions. “Life is not just about interior solutions.” (what do I and Ma mean by this?) – You bring your intelligence and work discipline – Research what interests you – Have self-confidence – Research discovery is a Poisson process. The probability that you will discover something in the next instant is practically zero. You need to accumulate time, hours, days, weeks even, for a positive discovery, an example, a proof. – Read his (easy) paper for more specifics.

McCloskey

McCloskey (continued) Need to work on persuasion, not demonstration. The way things are communicated does matter. Rhetoric is the theory of persuasion. It is an arrangement of argument. – Economics is built on logic and fact – A model is a metaphor. It tells a story in a general way. – There is a difference between economic significance and statistical significance. Statistical significance does not say much about economic significance. Statistical significance can only affirm a likelihood of excessive skepticism in the face of type I errors.

Style is the way you express yourself – Take ownership of your work – “Implied “ authorship (not writing in 1 st person) is not especially attractive. – Style is what makes your work persuasive. – His suggestion for improving persuasiveness.