Spring 2010
Guidelines for Econometric Projects
Doing the work as a team
The work on these projects is to be done (in most cases) by teams of two students. This doesn't necessarily mean that you are literally sitting at the same keyboard and taking turns typing commands. It does mean that both partners are aware of everything that is being done and that both "sign off" on the final product. Both partners are expected to contribute to all phases of the project: the econometric estimation tasks, the interpretation and analysis of results, and the writing of the report.
Contents of the report
The report that you submit should be in MS Word or pdf format and should be organized as a literate response to the questions, organized in paragraphs that can be understood by someone who didn't just read the question. (In other words, don't just say "No, the coefficients are different.") Include your basic numerical results in your paragraphs along with the appropriate analysis and interpretation of them.
Although you would never do this in a thesis or a published paper, please include the Stata output from which your results are generated before or after the results are discussed. This is helpful to me if your results don't agree with mine, so that I can attempt to determine what you did differently and which of us is correct. Stata text and table output can be copied and pasted into the report. The Stata tables are space aligned and will usually look best if you set them in a fixed-spaced typeface such as Courier.
Copying graphs from Stata to Word can be a little tricky. While you can use copy and paste, this is not reliable with older (2004 or before) versions of Mac Word due to a software bug that was never fixed. Although the graphs show up in Mac Word, they are not visible in other versions of Word, including mine. If you are using an older Mac Word to prepare your document, please save the graph from Stata onto your hard drive, then import it into Word using Insert --> Picture. This takes a few seconds longer, but will allow me to see your work. Alternatively, you can send your project report as a pdf, in which there are no such difficulties.
Submitting the report
Reports are to be sent electronically as an email attachment to the instructor at parker@reed.edu. (Note the absence of a first initial before or after the name. Please be careful because there are other Parkers at Reed who have a j before or after and your message will go to them if you get it wrong.) Project reports are generally due by 6am on Tuesdays.