Research Methods in Economics

1
Research Methods in Economics

• ECO 4451
• Reviewing the Literature

2
Review

• Previously we discussed developing a research
  plan from a general area or question of interest.
  
• Now we consider reviewing the literature related
  to your research question.

3
Outline

• Whats the literature?
• Why review the literature?
• How to review the literature
• Finding sources
• Critical reading
• Writing the review

4
The Literature

• The conversation between researchers conducted in
  published research
• The major prior studies
• What they say
• How they relate to one another

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Why Review the Literature?

• Educate yourself
• Angles, methods, problems, findings
• Educate your readers
• What is known not known
• Demonstrate that your knowledge is current.
• Invoke the authority of experts when needed.
• Be able to show how your research fits in the
  broader scheme of knowledge

6
Finding Sources

• Two main types of economic sources
• Data
• Facts, opinions, attitudes expressed numerically
  (prices, wages, incomes, etc)
• Prior literature
• Previous writing on a topic

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Reviewing the Literature Three Sources

• General sources for the informed public
• popular press, newspapers magazines, most
  Internet sites.
• Secondary sources summaries or syntheses of
  primary research
• review articles, edited books of readings,
  textbooks
• Primary sources first-hand accounts of actual
  research
• Articles in peer-reviewed journals, scholarly
  books, consulting or grant reports

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General Sources

• Your literature review might include all three
  types of sources
• General sources are the least valuable, but help
  introduce you to topic help motivate the
  reader
• Wall Street Journal, New York Times Index, etc.
• The Readers Guide to Periodical Literature

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Secondary Sources

• Secondary sources are extremely useful in
  bringing you up to speed, in identifying
  primary sources
• Journal of Economic Perspectives, Journal of
  Economic Literature, Journal of Economic Surveys
• Annual Reviews
• Others in the field youre researching e.g.,
  education for the example project last week

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Primary Sources

• Primary sources are the most important.
• You would be surprised at the number of scholarly
  journals in economics and other fields you may be
  interested in.
• General journals articles of broad interest to
  the profession, e.g., American Economic Review
• Field journals articles in a particular
  sub-field, e.g., Journal of Public Economics

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Primary Sources How Scholarly Journals Work

• A researcher submits the finished article to the
  editor of one journal.
• The editor ultimately decides whether to publish
  or to reject the article.
• In making a decision, the editor relies on two or
  more referees experts who review the manuscript
  and judge its suitability for publication.

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The Peer Review Process

• The referees are peer reviewers.
• Usually the referees recommend that the editor
  reject the paper, and the editor complies.
• The author then tries to improve the paper
  sends it to another journal.
• Sometimes the referees will recommend that the
  paper be reviewed a second time, after the author
  has remedied problems theyve found.
• The author then revises and resubmits the paper,
  and the process begins again.

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The Peer Review Process (Cont)

• Eventually the referees and editor may agree that
  the paper should be published.
• Although far from perfect, the peer review
  process helps to
• Weed out the worst research, which is rejected
  and not published
• Improve the papers that are eventually published
  
• Match papers to journals by quality

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Peer Review Research Quality

• One reason why articles in peer reviewed journals
  are best is the extensive screening involved in
  peer review.
• Another reason is that you get the first-hand
  account, complete with all the limitations that
  are sometimes ignored in secondary or general
  sources.

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Finding the Relevant Literature

• Electronic search engines are a good start,
  especially EconLit.
• Search for keywords in title or elsewhere.
• Link to articles abstract to see if it is worth
  reading further.
• In most cases you will be able to download the
  full text.
• This should get you a few good sources.

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From One Source to Many

• Use the reference list of one of the articles you
  found to find earlier related research.
• Use the Social Sciences Citation Index to find
  later related research.
• Use keywords or JEL codes from your source.
• Find one or more key researchers, do author
  search, use SSCI, find affiliation visit web
  site.

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Using review articles

• Another strategy is to find a good secondary
  source use its reference list, which will often
  be comprehensive.
• Browse the Journal of Economic Literature and the
  Journal of Economic Perspectives.

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Other approaches

• Browse the tables of contents of journals in the
  area of your topic.
• Some prominent field journals are listed in the
  document Searching for Literature and Data on
  the web page.
• Try the newly developed Google Scholar.

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Literature Search Information

• The document, Searching the Literature,
  provides an example of finding previous research.
  
• One focus is on using EconLit, the reference
  lists of identified articles.
• The other focus is on using SSCI to find more
  recent work that cites a prior study.

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Literature and Data Search Information

• The document, Searching for Research and Data,
  provides more information about databases that
  you may find useful.
• Indexes to periodical literature.
• Lists of field journals.
• RFE.
• Data sources.

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Literature Search Example

• A student wanted to explain what factors
  determine contributions to charities.
• Understandably, he initially thought that little
  or no economic research would have been done on
  this topic.
• See what you can come up with in just a few
  minutes.

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Reading Research Articles

• Your objectives include
• Understand existing knowledge
• To define your own contribution,
• to identify gaps or next steps,
• to gain knowledge to aid interpretations.
• Understand methods used, strengths weaknesses.

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Reading Research Articles (Cont)

• Adapt your style of reading to the importance of
  the article
• A first step is to skim the article to assess its
  relevance for your research
• You may not need it at all, or need only a very
  basic or general understanding
• If you need to understand the article in more
  detail, read it more carefully

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Types of Research Articles in Economics

• Survey articles like literature reviews
• Theoretical
• Creates or extends a theory and derives
  implications
• No test of model
• Math can be hard for undergraduates (and PhDs as
  well)
• Empirical
• Testing or quantifying a model or theoretical
  analysis
• Majority of papers

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The Usual Set-up for Empirical Research

• Often four main parts
• Introductory material
• Problem statement, motivation, very brief lit
  review
• Analysis of problem
• Apply economics to understand problem
• Empirical analysis
• Test or quantify the analysis
• Concluding discussion
• Explain results, put in context, develop
  implications

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The Story

• The gist of an article is its story
• A thesis supported by logical or empirical
  evidence
• Read the article to understand evaluate the
  story

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Understanding the Story

• What is the research question?
• What is the proposed answer (the thesis)?
• What are the major logical or theoretical reasons
  for the proposed answer?
• What empirical evidence is presented?
• What are the findings the answer?
• How does the study relate to prior research?
• Methods, findings, improvements

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Evaluating the Story

• What major assumptions are made?
• Are they reasonable?
• Does the thesis follow from a theoretical or
  logical analysis?
• Are the data used to test the analysis adequate?
• Is the empirical analysis appropriate?
• Do conclusions follow from the evidence?
• Is the paper clearly written?
• Overall, what are the major strengths
  weaknesses of the story?
• On balance, do you believe it?

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Difficulties in Understanding

• Technical or other jargon
• www.econterms.com
• Mathematical reasoning
• You dont have to understand the math, only the
  point the math is meant to make.
• Econometric methods
• Even if you dont understand the techniques, you
  can determine if the analysis supports or refutes
  the theory being tested.
• In other words, dont get frustrated if you dont
  follow all the details.

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Writing the Literature Review

• Take the perspective that you are writing for
  someone knowledgeable about economics who is not
  a specialist in the area you are investigating.
• Explain to the reader
• What questions have been investigated by whom
• What data and methods have been used

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Writing the Literature Review (Cont)

• Explain to the reader
• What results have been obtained
• What are the problems, weaknesses, limitations of
  earlier work.
• How will you fix these?
• What questions or controversies remain.
• How will you resolve these?

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Writing the Literature Review (Cont)

• Provide both breadth depth
• Depth fairly detailed summaries, evaluations
  comparisons for a small number of particularly
  important or relevant studies
• Breadth brief descriptions or mentions of less
  important or relevant studies, to show where the
  narrower topic fits in a broader literature

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Writing the Literature Review (Cont)

• Do more than summarize
• Evaluate, compare, draw inferences
• Make the review reach some kind of conclusion
• An example wrap it up with what do we know vs.
  what do we not yet know
• Make the review point to your research as the
  logical next step.

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Writing the Literature Review (Cont)

• Note that articles in peer-reviewed journals
  usually include only brief lit reviews.
• Dont use that as a model you are writing more
  of a thesis type of work that should include a
  lengthier and more detailed review of prior
  research.

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Citing Literature

• To emphasize a reference, include the last name
  of the author(s), followed by the year of
  publication in parentheses, in the body of a
  sentence.
• Smith (1776) introduced the idea of compensating
  differentials in his discussion of blah, blah.

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Citing Literature (Cont)

• To use one or more references to support a point
  you are making, put author date in parentheses,
  ordered by date or alphabetically by author.
• A similar conclusion was reached in two recent
  studies of blah, blah (Agee and Crocker 2000, Liu
  et al., 2000).
• Use first authors name et al. in the body of
  the paper when there are 3 or more authors.

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The Reference List

• Immediately follows conclusion.
• Lists bibliographic information for all works
  cited in alpha order by first authors last name.
• The general idea is that a reader needs to be
  able to locate the source without trouble, based
  on your reference.
• See examples provided on web page.

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Common Errors in Lit Reviews

• Not enough effort devoted to finding pertinent
  prior research.
• Not enough attention devoted to prior research
  published in peer-reviewed journals.
• Not enough information provided about the prior
  research.
• Writing a statement of intent rather than a
  review of literature.

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Common Errors in Lit Reviews (Cont)

• Writing a personal narrative.
• Just writing this study did this, that study did
  that, without attempting to explain why the
  studies reached similar or different conclusions.
  
• Not reaching any conclusion or inference or
  evaluation.
• Not bringing it to a point or having some type of
  summation/overview/conclusion.