Description
The structure of your paper should be as follows:
1. Introduction: This section provides a broad description of the issues your are writing about and why they are important. You must specifically state the question you want to examine in your paper. You must also present the structure of the paper and summarize and explain how each subsequent section fits. Introduction section is typically written last when everything about the paper is known. Introduction should be between 1000 to 1300 words. It should contain all of the major points you make in your paper.
2. Review of the Literature: In this section, summaries of all related works must be presented and appropriately cited. Be mindful that you don’t come up with most of the facts and figures you present in your paper, so cite your sources. This section provides information on what has been done so far on the issue and what the debates are. There is always debate and opposing views on all economic issues, and this is healthy. So, if you look for one “Truth” you may be disappointed. Unveiling these debates helps in exposing the importance of the specific issue you are addressing and how it fits in grand the scheme. You may choose to review and examine, in more detail, the literature and the specific issues you are writing about. Don’t pick an open ended or grand issue. Be very specific and focus your paper on something manageable. Somewhere in this section, state what specific hypothesis you will test.
3. Data: Describe the data you will use in your study. Explain its source and nature, and its shortcomings (if any). Be sure to develop a display in which each variable is clearly defined and the units of measurement are stated. It is often valuable to include descriptive statistics (the mean, range, observation interval, and standard deviation) for each variable. Be sure to include all of the data you used to estimate your model in the Appendix.
4. Methodology: Describe the analytical methodology that you employ to test your hypotheses. Explain why this is the appropriate method, and what are its shortcomings (if any). Write your hypotheses and speculate on what you expect to find. Outline the sequence of procedures that you intend to use (for example: summary statistics for selected variables, correlation, OLS etc.). Make sure that your data is amenable to the procedures you intend to use (such as numerical data or dummy variables, etc.). Use the appropriate procedures to analyze your data, and document your results by stating labels for variables, hypotheses tested, procedure results (provide the outputs, labeled).
5. Results: Present the results of your quantitative analysis and explain its technical nature (regression tables, charts, etc.). Explain the economic meaning of the numbers you present and the results of your statistical tests. Communicate your conclusions based on results of the analyses. Link results to your hypotheses. Explain why you chose the statistical procedures performed. Explain what the results mean in terms of your initial research question.
6. Conclusion: Present the issues you dealt with and the contributions you made through your findings. Describe what remains unknown and the direction for future research.
7. References: Present all sources you cited in the format outlined in the style sheet. Don’t use footnotes or endnotes for citation purposes. Use footnotes only to make additional comments only. 8. Appendix to refer to the data.
