Introduction and Course Overview
ECON 73010: Research & Writing Seminar I
Eric Sims
University of Notre Dame
Spring 2024
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Readings and Assignments
Reading:
▶ For today: Weisbach (2020): Ch. 1, 2, and 3
▶ For next time: Weisbach (2020): Ch. 12, Thompson (2011):
Ch. 1; Jones and Sloan (2020)
Assignment:
▶ Begin to think of three research ideas
▶ One page summaries due February 1
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Syllabus and Course Logistics
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Course Objectives
The overarching objective for the course:
▶ Help you transition from student to scholar
Two more direct objectives for this course:
1. Get you started with research in general and third-year paper
in particular
2. Give you an overview of the economics profession
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Backward Induction
Where do you want to be in 3-4 years?
▶ With a PhD and a job
▶ Academia
▶ Government
▶ Private
Where do you want to be in 10 years?
▶ In a successful career
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How Do You Get There?
That’s where this course comes in
There is no one way and in part it depends on what you want out
of your career
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Research and Professionalization
Research is what a PhD is all about
But there is a lot more to being a successful researcher than just
doing the research
▶ Economics is both art and science
▶ How you pitch yourself and your work matters a lot
▶ Professionalization: how to best position yourself for a
successful career as a researcher
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Do As I Say, Not As I Do
A big part of this course is going to be me giving you advice, or
you reading advice from others
▶ This advice is borne from years of mistakes and watching
other people be successful
▶ In part, I’m going to be telling you things I wish I knew when I
was a second-year
▶ But sometimes, I don’t follow my own advice . . .
▶ . . . you don’t have to either, but you should at least consider
my words of wisdom
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Collective Effort
The scientific process is really a collective effort
Lean on your classmates for help, feedback, and support
We are all in this together
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Two Parts to the Course
These will be interwoven:
1. Getting started with research
2. Learning about the profession
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Class Setup
Each class meeting will feature a lecture from me, some will
feature presentations by you:
▶ A 30-60 minute lecture from me on different topics
▶ Interactive, student-led discussions for the remainder of each
class
Each week on the syllabus has a lecture, a student activity, and an
assignment
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Lecture Topics
1. Developing research ideas
2. Being a (successful) graduate student
3. Writing economics
4. Presentations
5. The publication process
6. Referee reports
7. Journals, conference, grants, and citations
8. Teaching
9. Mental health and well-being
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Student Activities
1. Discuss broad research interests
2. Discuss three specific research ideas
3. Discuss mini-research proposal
4. Identify an advisor
5. Teaching demonstration
6. Present final research proposal
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Primary Deliverables
1. Three research ideas (one page each)
2. Mini-research proposal (3-5 pages)
3. Feedback on other proposals (1-2 pages each)
4. Teaching demonstration (with slides)
5. Research proposal (5-10 pages), presentation, and research
plan (one page)
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Grading
30 percent: in-semester deliverables
▶ one-page research ideas
▶ mini-research proposal
▶ feedback on other proposals
▶ teaching demonstration
50 percent: final research proposal
▶ Research proposal
▶ Slides/presentation
▶ Research plan
20 percent: participation
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Developing Research Ideas
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The Competitive Environment
Academic research is becoming increasingly competitive
▶ More global
▶ More specialized
▶ Higher barriers to entry (roughly same journal space, high
computation/technical/data burdens in many fields)
▶ Increasing “lab-like” features with lots of research
infrastructure
But good research still boils down to:
▶ An interesting, relevant question . . .
▶ . . . that you can explain in basic terms to most people
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Some Broad Advice
1. Know your own production function
2. Recognize your own capacity
3. Do things you find fun
4. Finish things
▶ The last 20 percent of a paper is often the toughest and most
time-consuming
▶ It is easy to start projects
▶ It is hard to finish
▶ Be a closer
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Hunting vs. Farming
Weisbach draws a distinction between hunting and farming
▶ Hunting: more active, you know what you want, and you go
after it
▶ Farmer: more passive, look for mistakes or holes in what
others have done, less cohesive approach to projects
Hunting is riskier, farming safer: know yourself and what you want
▶ I’m a believer in diversification
▶ Start out safe, then start taking more risks
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Research Agenda
Professionally, it is to your benefit to have a cohesive research
agenda / program
It is much easier to stand out if you are known as the “He/she
does X” person rather than “He/she does X, Y, and Z” person
Research entails high fixed costs and individual projects are risky;
having a cohesive agenda makes it easier to write multiple papers
and provides some diversification
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Where and How to Get Ideas
Read:
1. Newspapers / periodicals / substacks / social media
2. Academic papers
3. Stuff outside of your own field (including stuff outside of
economics)
Do read the literature, but not too much: don’t want to get
blinders on
The best research has real world relevance – read about the real
world
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Whittling Down
Good research projects go from big to small
▶ Big: a big picture interest (e.g. monetary policy)
▶ Small: a specific question within a big picture interest (e.g.
what happens when the Fed keeps the FFR “lower for longer”
after the ZLB?)
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Research Question
Every paper/project should start with a question
Answer the following:
▶ What are you trying to answer?
▶ Why does it matter?
▶ How are you going to try to answer the question?
You ought to be able to succinctly state what the research
questions is on any project
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The “Value” of a Research Project
Roughly speaking, the “value” of a paper (and hence its
publication and citation prospects) depends on:
1. The importance of the question
2. The probability you are getting the correct answer
3. How well you sell it
V = F (I , P, S )
There is usually some tradeoff between the importance of the
question and the probability you get it right. Different fields seem
to have settled on different tradeoffs, too
Often, the key to success is picking the right questions that don’t
involve much tradeoff in I and P
But you are always in control of S
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How Research is Evaluated
Economics is a journal-based discipline
▶ Journal quality is the primary metric upon which research is
evaluated
▶ You want to shoot high
▶ If you aren’t getting rejected, you aren’t submitting to the
right places
▶ Journals want impact and relevance
▶ Incumbent upon author to demonstrate impact and relevance
– writing (particularly abstract and intro) matters!
▶ In top departments, focus is far more on quality than
quantity
▶ Having “crummy” publications on your CV can hurt you at
these places
▶ Further down food chain, quantity starts to matter more
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Stages and Sunk Costs
It is a good idea when you get a little older to have projects at
different stages:
1. Completed paper(s) in submission process
2. Active working papers
3. Works in progress (results, no draft)
4. Ideas
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket . . .
. . . but also don’t make the sunk cost fallacy – know when to
abandon a bad project
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Collaboration
Most research in economics is now co-authored
Old adage is that the job market paper (JMP) needs to be
single-authored
But we increasingly see student-student coauthored JMPs (e.g.
Natalia Emanuel three years ago), and sometimes advisor-student
coauthored JMPs (e.g. Joseph Root the year before)
▶ First best: single-authored
▶ Second best: student co-authorship
▶ Third best: advisor co-authorship
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Collaboration Continued
But a dissertation requires several papers, and job market
prospects are monotonic in number of papers/publications
It is good if you have coauthored stuff with other students and
advisors
▶ Co-authoring with advisor is like an apprenticeship – you get
to see how the sausage is made, and will have better
publication prospects
▶ Coauthoring with other students is fun, and you can all benefit
from specialization according to comparative advantage
You should consider coauthoring with both professors and other
students!
▶ With exception of JMP, really no “penalty” for coauthoring –
it’s a norm
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Student Activity
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Each student discusses broad research interests, and any specific
ideas they may currently have
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