Assignment - Your favorite paper

Instructions for submission

Due date: Wednesday September 23rd, 9:00am

Submission: Portail des Etudes

  1. Identify your favorite economics paper.
  2. Summarize it in one or two sentences describing the main question/results and method used.
  3. Write 5 lines (no more) to describe why this is your favorite paper, what you particularly like about this paper.
  4. In one line, say if a replication package is available and if so provide a link. (You can even run the replication if you want to make sure that the package runs and reproduces the results of the paper)
  5. Submit a LaTeX generated PDF.
Instructions for submission (Part 2)

Due date: Wednesday September 30th, 9:00am

Submission: Portail des Etudes

Submission type: Submit a LaTeX generated PDF.

Using the same paper, answer the following questions. You can also change papers if you want, in particular maybe for a more recent one. I am just grading the effort so please play the game by the rules and do not read the text of the paper if I ask you not to read it.

  1. Display a readable screenshot of the main regression result table of the paper. Then, only looking at the table and not reading the text of the paper, answer the following questions.

    1. Describe (briefly) the various rows of the table. Do not describe it row by row or column by column but groups of rows by groups of rows for instance.
    2. Interpret the coefficient of interest. Make a sentence.
    3. Are the effect they find large?
    4. How do you interpret the difference in the coefficients across columns. Is the difference statistically significant?
    5. Now read the associated text; does that correspond to what you understood?

  2. Extract and display one graph from the paper. Again, without reading the text of the paper nor the title:

    1. What is the main message of the graph? Summarise the story this graph aims to tell.
    2. Read the title, does that change your interpretation?
    3. Read the text, does that change your interpretation?
    4. Is there anything specific you would change about this graph?
    5. Is this graph a bit memorable? If not, why and what would you change about it?