The Art

1
The Art Craft of Business and Economics
Research at Oxford

• Bryane Michael, Linacre College

Note These slides are for my teaching only and
do not represent the official (or probably even
unofficial) views of Oxford University, any of
her departments, or possibly any of her
academics!
Please cite if you use this work as I work for
glory (infamy) rather than money
2
Motivation

• That is what learning is. You suddenly understand
  something you've understood all your life, but in
  a new way -- Doris Lessing
• His priority did not seem to be to teach them
  what he knew, but rather to impress upon them
  that nothing, not even... knowledge, was
  foolproof -- J. K. Rowling
• The creation of something new is not accomplished
  by the intellect but by the play instinct acting
  from inner necessity. The creative mind plays
  with the objects it loves -- Carl Jung (1875 -
  1961)

3
The Problem

• The World Is Complex
• Focus on the most important bit
• Simplicity is eloquence

4
Step 1 Start with a Question
MANY QUESTIONS IN ONE SET OF DATA What is this
guy talking about? The world is complex, could
have asked what is the guy on the far left
thinking..
5
Step 2 Read around

• Many differing perspectives on the research
  question.
• Every author will have one or some perspectives
• You must aggregate these using
• synthesis putting together (see basic study
  Powerpoints)
• analysis splitting apart (and maybe putting
  together in different way!)

6
Step 3 Identify Methods of Tackling Problem

• Economic
• Political
• Social/Anthropological
• Technological
• Demographic
• Business/Public Administration
• Critical

Approaches Given as an Annex
7
Step 4 Theories needed

• Each approach has a number of theories
• Use judgment to find the best one.
• Like Picasso painting, all perspectives right and
  wrong. Which one more useful?

8
Your Theory A Users Guide
Forget about It!
Po-mo strikes Again!
Paradigm shift wow, a whole new way of Seeing
the world!
Accretion theory (Popper) Nothing true, only
falsifiable Hard core/soft core some beliefs
form discipline, others a bit iffy
You should shoot for here
9
de Bonos Creativity Model
Baudrillard and Bordieu
resources are artisitc and cultural ones
way of distributing resources
economics
vertical creativity (thinking in wider concepts)
lateral creativity (can one concept be linked to
another?)
politics
fill in the middle
economics
Your research must add a new perspective not a
consulting report
10
The Flip

• Look for cases where the inverse is true (it
  always is under the right conditions)
• Democracy is good
• FLIP democracy is bad
• if too many voices, unstable
• Corruption is bad
• FLIP corruption is good
• undermines a useless system

Even an first year undergrad essay MUST consider
the flip!
11
Avoid the Trivial

• Applying the framework
• Here is how NPE can be applied in the Indian case
• Porters 5 forces in Jakarta
• Add the variable
• we will add risk-aversion AND steeper discounting
• Find the data
• we have data for Chile, but not for Senegal.
• Avoid the obvious
• our models shows war is bad for growth
• we have constructed a 30 page maths model to show
  people like peace and quiet.
• Nit-picks on details
• the author didnt consider heterogeneous agents.
• what about durable goods consumption in the
  regression
• how many times did IMF use word justice in
  annual report.
• BUT can be great if the devil is in the details!

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Examples of great results(in my opinion)

• Find a cool data source
• magribi traders, ancient Jewish archives
• State a counter-intuitive result
• demand curve may slope up
• Cross-boundaries
• economic goods are images (Baudrillardian
  economics)
• (almost mistyped this as images are economics
  goods!)
• psychology not only shows that agents are not
  rational, but also shows how they would act!
• Shows the same thing in a different light
• we are not a shoe company, but spirit of sports.
• assets as bundles of property rights
• Use a new method
• linear programming used to be new and cool!
• networks
• lattice mathematics

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The Research Relationships
novelty
novelty
NI
NC
credibility
impressiveness
novelty
novelty
NS
utility (hill of happiness)
NS
speed
pay-off f(impressiveness, -credibility)
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Step 5 Form a model
Supply of people With experience

• Not bad, but still
• not parsimonious

Guy speaking
Desire for information
Discovery -- not seeing new things with the same
eyes but seeing the same things with different
eyes!
15
Induction versus deduction
Deduction
Economics/ politics
Dont confuse The two!
Anthro/sociology
Induction
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Cause and Effect
explanans
explanandum
Beware reverse causality!
Logical rules
Ding au sich
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Research Design

• Exploratory research
• Identifies new trends
• Perhaps expands the lexicon
• New ideas
• Generally futurology, not academics
• Descriptive research
• What is going on?
• Journalism, not hard core academics
• Causal research
• Whys it going on?
• Mainstay of academics
• Need data!

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Step 6 Data Needed

• Quantitative versus qualitative
• What is the causality?
• Logic a--gtb (guy talking implies people need to
  know)
• Probability a was 40 like given b and c.
• (maybe need to know, or maybe turned up by
  accident)
• Natural law (it was bound to happen, logic of
  history)
• (ours is the knowledge economy)
• What if (if he talked in the woods, would
  anyone hear?)
• Ooops. Unintended consequences
• None. Salt over left shoulder does not affect
  lottery chances!

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Write Up

• Introduction
• Literature Review
• Model
• Empirics
• Conclusion
• Like jumping from a place, just do it!

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The Literature Review

• A Bad Literature Review
• author A says this, author B says that
• simple summarises the issues issue by issue
• An Average Literature Review
• groups the literature in a particular way
• State centric, society centric, etc.
• A Good Literature Review
• re-interprets the literature in a whole new light
• eg. if capital represents relations between
  people, the KL can a weight for social
  relations...

21
How to do it

• Most of us are not geniuses who reinterpret at
  one go
• Write what you know (the bad review)
• Rearrange and keep rearranging (average)
• Once you form a view of the literature,
  reinterpret from something else you know

22
Po-mo A destruction kit

• The limits of my words are the limits of my
  thought.
• What you see is what you get
• Believing is seeing!
• Social constructivism
• Emic let me show you the world with my eyes
• The only cure for po-mo is pragmatism

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A WARNING ON PO-MO

• Anyone can deconstruct
• So, how DOES the world work then, smart guy?
• If we construct world and trade symbols, what
  governs that?!?
• Turtles all the way down does not help fly
  planes.

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A WARNING ON VALUES RESEARCH

• No agreed hierarchy of values
• De gustibus non est disputandum
• Different values (freedom, liberty, progress,
  privacy, community)
• What you you value is what you see
• people with hammers tend to see every problem as
  a nail!)
• Dont put it in your thesis (in economics) unless
  you know what youre doing, otherwise youll get
  clobbered.
• Does international business promote global
  justice?
• this will go on and on...
• This said, if you can specify it rigorously,
  could revolutionise the discipline!

25
My top 10 guesses on the Post-capitalist,
post-industrialist relativity theory that will
extend and paradigm shift Neo-classical Economic
Newtonianism

• NB The foundations of 20th century economics
  validated and revalided need encompassing
  perspective
• Listed in order
• Formalisation of Castells (information as input,
  knowledge as output) (Ill put my money here).
• Information economics (recent Stiglitz, not old
  stuff, even a sketch of the general theory is
  exciting!!!)
• Complexity theory (trans-disciplinary, not multi)
• Union of economics, politics, and sociology under
  rational choice theory (probably advance in game
  theory) not necessarily good but could be
  likely!

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Top 10 guesses continued

• Unification of the social science disciplines
  under institutional theory
• Unification of tripartite model (govt, business,
  NGO) under some form of CSR which rigorously lays
  out the PPE and sociology.
• Affluence the economics of non-scarcity
  (through a contradiction in terms that is!)
• Baudrillardian economics (if made rigorous but
  exciting)
• Meme theory with Austrian school
• Breakthrough in economic psychology
• Understanding of the new economy organised around
  hydrogen economy, quantum computing, nano-tech,
  fiber-optics, and bio-engineering leads to new
  unknown theoretical mechanics.
• Dont choose one of these as a thesis/dissertation
  , maybe one small bit!

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Approach Annexes
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Economics Approaches

• Costs versus benefits
• Income and welfare as ultimate maximands
• The Truth is Out There
• Talking guy balances costs and benefits of
  addressing the group.

p
Approaches
speaking
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Political Approaches

• Power
• A?b
• A tricks B, sets the agenda
• B is hegemonised!
• Group interests
• Guy seeks political and social power to make
  others do what they would not otherwise do.

Approaches
30
Social/Anthropological

• Functional (what is the role of everyone in the
  room).
• Structural (its all in the mind)
• Semiotic (how to define talking, guy?)
• The speakerness of the speaker in the
  contextuality essentialises the pride attibutes
  of the personae which the Other manifestly
  represents.
• Latte is not a consumption good, but a way of
  life, dude.

Approaches
31
Technological Approaches

• Constructivism versus determinism?
• How does the technology allow the guy to come to
  the conference, use microphone
• The medium is the message?

Approaches
32
Demographic

• How have population trends influenced people to
  engage in this work?
• Relative age pyramids
• Demographic is destiny

Approaches
33
Other Approaches

• Historical
• Use of different perspectives to approach the
  Past (though a historian might disagree!)
• Coincidence versus path dependence
• Particular tells us something about general and
  visa-versa
• Psychological
• How we think is what we get
• Rationality Irrationality drive our world

My favorites despite my complete inability to use
these perspectives!