ECON 412: Research Methodology
Introduction to the course
Atonu Rabbani
Email: [Link]@[Link]
Recap
• We discussed a document in the last class
• What was the point? [One of you asked, “How is it relevant?”]
• You should always ask this question.
• The basic research question: Why are the things the
way they are?
• E.g. Is there anything in the “university ordinance” that
encourage group politics? Answer: Yes.
• Policy question: How can we avoid party/group politics?
Answer: Stop electing administrator, such as, deans
Basic logistics
• Two sections/groups
• Please attend the session you are assigned to
• I have flipped the sequence.
• Tuesdays: Section A - 11:00-12:20, Section B - 12:30-13:50
• Thursdays: Section B - 11:00-12:20, Section A - 12:30-13:50
• Large class size - attending lectures will be helpful
• Please read the assigned texts. I will typically share
them before the lectures.
Class schedule
• 30/09/24-28/11/24 - Lectures (N = about 12)
• 01/12/24-05/12/24 - Midterm preparation break/review sessions
• 08/12/24-12/12/24 - Midterm exams (we may include Saturdays)
• 15/12/24-19/12/24.- Post-midterm breaks
• 22/12/24-30/12/25.- Lectures (N = about 12)
• 02/02/25-06/02/25 - Final exam preparation week/review sessions
• 08/02/25-20/02/25 - Final exams (we may include Saturdays)
Broad logistics
• All of you are required to write an
undergraduate research
monograph
• So, the aim is to equip you to
write the monograph
• Having a good grasp of research
methodology will help you:
• …in your career, doesn’t matter
where you end up
• …generally, vaccinating yourself
against misinformation
Course evaluation
• Total marks 100 (tranformed to letter grades)
• Final 50 marks (statutory requirement )
• Session 50 marks, of which
• Midterm = 25 marks, perhaps less
• Research question development = 5 marks
• Concept note = 15 marks, perhaps more
• Attendance = 5 marks
What is doing research?
• IMHO, preparing yourself for a conversation
• So it is important to know who you are conversing with
(“Know your audience”)
• Examples:
• Supervisor
• Examiner/evaluator
• Peer/other researchers = experts
• General public = non-experts
• Yourself, e.g., to form an informed opinion
Research
philosophy
Why do we need it?
How can it help in
carrying out research?
If we don’t know what
we are looking forward,
we may end up chasing
unicorns (as Fryer
nicely articulated)
This will also help you
justifying research
methodology and
methods
A skeptical challenge
Morpheus: Have you ever had
a dream, Neo, that you seemed
so sure it was real? But if were
unable to wake up from that
dream, how would you tell the
difference between the dream
world & the real world?
Neo: This can't be.
Morpheus: Be what? Be real?
(The Matrix, 2001)
Source: [Link]
Do philosophers agree on anything? Yes!
Source: [Link]
Two sets of questions
Ontology Epistemology
Is there a reality What counts as
beyond our experience? knowledge?
What is the nature of How is it that we come
this reality? to know anything? Can
What is the difference we be certain?
between reality and What do we mean by
experience? truth?
Source: [Link]
What is ontology?
• Ontology = study of
being, nature of reality
and existence
• We make some
assumptions about
reality, even if we may
not be aware of them
• Ontology makes us
aware of these
assumptions, and
encourage questioning
them
Ontology of mainstream economics
• Open floor? [5 minutes]
• Agents are “rational” individuals know what is best for
them (basically can rank different options or
“consumption baskets” according to their preference)
• Agents face constraints given prices (market or non-
market), resources, technologies, institutions
(legal/normative, formal/informal)
• Agents make constrained optimal decisions
• Realism = “world is • Relativism = scientific laws
Different concrete and external, and are not simply out there to be
ontological that science can progress
only through observations
discovered, but that they are
created by people
positions that have a direct
• Social reality is “defined and
correspondence to the
phenomena being experienced differently by
investigated” different people, and this will
depend greatly on the
• Many different, softer(?) classes or races to which
versions they belong, and the
contexts or countries in
• Internal realism = “a which they live”
single reality, but asserts
that it is never possible for • Nominalism “labels and
scientists to access that names we attach to
reality directly” experiences and events are
crucial”
Source: MBR, Table 3.2 p.50.
Two sets of questions (again)
Ontology Epistemology
Is there a reality What counts as
beyond our experience? knowledge?
What is the nature of How is it that we come
this reality? to know anything? Can
What is the difference we be certain?
between reality and What do we mean by
experience? truth?
Source: [Link]
Three basic “paradigms”
Positivism: “the social Social Critical realism builds
world exists externally, constructionism: on both of its rivals. It
and that its properties “focuses on the ways acknowledges that the
can be measured that people make sense world is real, and that
through objective of the world – especially knowledge production is
methods rather than through sharing their fallible and theory-
being inferred experiences with others dependent but not
subjectively through via the medium of theory-determined
sensation, reflection or language”
intuition”
Philosophical assumptions of positivism
Source: MBR, Table 3.3 p.52.
Methodological implications of different
epistemologies
Source: MBR, Table 3.5 p.54.
Key takeaways
Reality
Knowledge
• Philosophical positions
can help place your Methodolog
research for the right y
audience
Method
• Nobody commits to one
specific “paradigm” Quantitative (Internal) Realist
Positivist
We can be pragmatic Econometrics
(read Fryer’s paper)
• Specific choice sheds
light specific aspect of
reality, being aware of it
helps