For Students

Economists have formal and tacit knowledge. Formal knowledge can be written or verbalized, for example knowledge about properties of the Metropolis-Hastings Algorithm. Tacit (“procedural”) knowledge is based on doing: A teacher can explain a bicycle's physical structure, but only you can learn how to ride. You develop procedural knowledge through practice, by doing economics. 

Examples of economics done by students:

• Excess Return Properties of Informationally Insensitive Dynamic Return Predictability Strategies, Tony Wang

• CEO Duality and Corporate Stewardship: Evidence from Takeovers, Victor Ghazal, published in The Visible Hand (Cornell Economic Society)

• Exchange Rate Regimes, Capital Inflows, and Domestic Credit in Emerging Markets, Caroline Okel, published in Columbia University Economics Review

• Is There Export-Platform FDI in Latin America?, Sam Bundy and Emily Lynch

• The Effect of Terminating Enforcement Actions on the Nation's Problem Banks, Ben Doehr, published in Undergraduate Economic Review 

• Behavioral Biases in Mergers and Acquisitions: Do Initial Acquirer Bids Anchor Selling Company Boards?, Beau Bressler, published in Duke University Economic Review

Economic recommendations are arguments

An argument has the following components:

1. a main point / recommendation / claim / conclusion / thesis / assertion

2. backed by evidence / anecdote, data visualization, econometric findings, prior research findings, historical facts

3. and backed by economic theory + assumptions, motivated by knowledge of existing scientific approaches in a topic area

These three components are linked together via argument structure, in which evidence and reasons lead to your main point.

• Argument mapping basics

• Toulmin Argument Map

• Abduction epistemology in Economics

• Epistemological approaches in economics

Communicating Economics:

• Dudenhefer's Guide to Writing in Economics

• David Eil Twitter feed decoding great Social Science Writing 

• An indispensable guide to nonfiction writing

Data visualizations:

• Visualization tells a story

• Chart Guide (storytellingwithdata)

• Chart Guide (WSJ)

• An Economist's Guide to Visualizing Data

• Ten Guidelines for Better Tables

Offering feedback:

• Tips for being a good paper discussant

Economics journals (undergraduate research)

• Berkeley Economic Review

• Ceteris Paribus (UNC)

• Columbia Economic Review

• Columbia Journal of Politics and Society

• Comparative Advantage (Stanford)

• Cornell Undergraduate Economic Review

• Dartmouth Undergraduate Journal of Politics, Economics and World Affairs

• Equilibria: Duke Economics Review 

• Issues in Political Economy

• Student Economic Review (Trinity College Dublin)

• The Developing Economist (U Texas Austin)

• Undergraduate Economic Review

Pre-submission checklists:

• Pre-submission checklist 1

• Pre-submission checklist 2

Tutorials and refreshers:

• Excel

• Math refresher (Harvard)

• Linear Algebra

• Statistics (MIT)

• Causal inference introduction (Elise Dumas)

• The long and short of OVB (M. Joshway)