For Learners

A teacher can explain bicycle parts, but only you can learn how to ride. 

Economists have both formal and tacit knowledge. Formal knowledge can be written down or explained verbally, such as the mathematical properties of the Metropolis-Hastings algorithm. But conceptual knowledge is not the same as practical know-how, which comes from experience (from doing economics).

• research as a leisure activity

Economic analysis is an argument:

Which has the following components:

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

2. evidentiary backing, such as historical facts, data visualizations, econometric results, existing research findings

3. assumptions/theory linking evidence with conclusions

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

• Argument mapping basics

• Toulmin Argument Map

• Abduction epistemology in Economics

• Epistemological approaches in economics

Recent learners' analysis: 

• How do Strategic Buyers Value Synergies in Different Macroeconomic Conditions? by Taylor Hopkin

• Empirical Commodity Asset Pricing, by Max Shackleford

• How Does CEO Compensation Structure Affect Healthcare Firms' R&D Investment? by Davin Lim

• Alternative measures of profitability and investment in factor models by Kyle Berlage

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

Tips for communicating your analysis:

• The first lesson of descriptive writing

• Writing what you like, not just what you are fed (developing taste)

• Minto Pyramid

• Guide to Writing in Economics (Dudenhefer)

• Twitter feed on Social Science Writing (David Eil)

• An indispensable guide to nonfiction writing

Data visualization and table guides:

• Visualization tells a story

• Chart Guide (storytellingwithdata)

• Chart Guide (WSJ)

• An Economist's Guide to Visualizing Data

• Ten Guidelines for Better Tables

How to give good feedback:

• Tips for being a good paper discussant

Publish your analysis:

• 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)

• The Tulane Journal of Policy and Political Economy

• Undergraduate Economic Review

Pre-submission checklists:

• Pre-submission checklist 1

• Pre-submission checklist 2

Econ tutorials and refreshers:

• Argument Mapping Basics (Harvard)

• Math pre-refresher (Harvard)

• Mathematics for Economists overview (85 pages)

• Linear Algebra

• Statistics (MIT)

• Causal inference introduction (Elise Dumas)

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

Useful concepts for thinking logically:

• Ill-posed inverse problem