This repository contains those materials used to provide guidance on the Winter 2024 thesis seminar taught by Professor Kyle Coombs. This is a living syllabus that students can use to navigate the course.
Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:10pm to 2:30pm.
E-mail: [email protected]
You can also tag me @kgcsport in Issues and Discussions.
Full syllabus is available here or as a PDF.
Building on experience from previous economics courses, students in this course produce new independent research. Students will find a researchable idea, execute their idea, and present their results in both oral and written formats. The structure of the class is intended to provide you support in key areas of doing research such as finding an appropriate topic, finding and manipulating data, and placing your results in the related literature. All students are expected to provide feedback on the projects of other students in the class. In this class, all students are expected to actively participate and arrive prepared to do so. Students who are blatantly unprepared may be asked to leave: expectations are very high.
| Class | Topic | Reading | Assignment |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 11 | Research Questions (html, pdf) | Four Steps, Frick et al. (2023), Sommer (2023), Logani (2022) | Two research questions |
| Jan 16-18 | What makes research "good"? | Angrist & Pischke (2008) Ch. 1, Economical Writing, Applied Micro Talk | Create Project Directory and GitHub Repository, Previous Thesis Report |
| Jan 23-25 | Pitches + Identification | The Effect Ch. 5 | 5-minute presentations of ideas, Two detailed question proposals |
| Jan 30-Feb 1 | Individual Meetings, Reproducible Research | Hidden Decisions | Proposal/Introduction, presentation slots given out |
| Feb 6-8 | Proposal | Bellemare (2020), [Head (2008)] | Proposal Presentations |
| Feb 13-15 | Workflow & Data report | Practioner's Guide | Data Report |
| Feb 20-22 | Break | ||
| Feb 27-Feb 29 | Methods, Data Description | Angrist & Pischke (2008) Ch. 5 | Replication documentation |
| Mar 5-7 | Results, Individual Meetings | Methods Section | |
| Mar 12-14 | Data Presentations | Data Section | |
| Mar 19-21 | Results workshop | ||
| Mar 26-28 | Individual Meetings, Poster Workshop | Results due | |
| Apr 2-4 | Practice Presentations | Meager (2017) | |
| Apr 9-11 | Final Presentations | ||
| April 12th | Poster Session | ||
| April 18 | No class - Final Exams | Final Documentation and Thesis |