Structural equation model should be used whenever explanatory variables are correlated OR causing in one way or other as suggested by Dr. Asad Zaman.
COMMENTS ON SLIDES:
Slide 2: Present it better: TITLE: Natural Resources: Blessing or Curse?
Subject Matter: There is a controversy in Econ literature regarding effect of natural resources on growth.
Some authors find that presence of natural resources lead to higher growth. (cite
Others think that natural resources lead to slower growth (cite
Now the main controversey has be presented and highlighted. We have a conflict of opinion, which we will try to resolve.
Slide 3: While Natural Resource is wealth and therefore its being a blessing is easy to understand -- Why should it be a curse. Instead of just citing studies, you should also explain a little bit about WHY it can be a curse in this slide. TITLE of slide could by Natural Resource: A Curse??? or WHY NR can be a curse.
Slide 4: Objectives
first bullet is provides details of methodology which cannot be understood by reader at this point -- also it would make sense only with reference to literature.
Bullets/point 2,3&4. are relatively clear and sufficient. Eliminate first point.
Slide 5, 6 ,7: Literature Review -- this is a sequential list of articles, an ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY, not a literature review. FURTHERMORE, you write a lot of things which are IRRELEVANT to your research. Review must focus on concepts related and relevant to your research. For example you talk about GOVERNANCE and QUALITY of INSTITUTIONS -- you can discuss it ONLY if you plan to do research on these factors.
you put too much details on slides. try to write key points
Literature review mostly discusses Resource curse, you did not include any study who find resource abundance as blessing, is their no study which has found resource abundance as blessing...
SLIDE 8: Title should be HOW TO MEASURE RESOURCE ABUNDANCE/SCARCITY
then we can talk about dfferen proxies used for this purpose.
second you should also review literature according to different proxies used in literature so we would be able to get clear picture how proxies effect ....
Slide 9: Research GAP: Too much detail. please try to write it in bullets.......with minimum words....
i think you should clearly discuss how your proxy of resource abundance is superior to other proxies, as you are introducing new proxy, so you should establish its superiority on other techniques.
Slide 10-13: Data and Methodology
From this it FINALLY becomes clear that you are going to take an existing model and change one of the variable. This is TOO minor an innovation, and TOO EASY to do.
Somebody has already done GROWTH = FUNCTION of NAT RESOURCE, + OTher variables.
Now you want to use a Different proxy to measure resource abundance. Just run the same regression but replace one variable. This is not enough for research. First you must look at ALL growth regressions of this type, what proxies have been used and with what result. After a comprehensive picture of all such reserach, you can focus on finding the relevant proxy.
But usually ONE proxy will NOT suffice to measure -- how will you know if you have a better or worse results. INSTEAD, we use several proxies for ONE hidden variable, this is the basic idea of SEM models The real variable (Nat Resource Abundance) cannot be measured but many different proxies are available. With this new technique you get the innovation that is necessary part of M. Phil. degree. It is too small for Ph.D. but just barely enough for M.Phil level reserach.