Research Tips

Books

Weisbach, Michael 2021 "The Economist’s Craft". Princeton University Press.

(The book is highly recommended. It is about how to conduct academic research, including how to be a successful PhD student. Note that Weisbach is the former editor of RFS.)

Simon W. Bowmaker, 2012, The Art and Practice of Economics Research: Lessons from Leading Minds (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012) (In this book, the author interviewed many top economists, such as Daron Acemoglu, Susan Athey, Robert Lucas, and Eric Maskin, about how to do research.)

Key Tips

How to Succeed in Academia, Lasse HejePedersen, NYU and Copenhagen Business School,

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3972340

Writing Tips for PhD students, by John Cochrane, University of Chicago

http://home.bi.no/charlotte.ostergaard/students/phd_paper_writing.pdf

Tips for Finance Ph.D. students, by Luke Taylor, Wharton

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1P-lmZAGQt_VcXVxColYW4UCGfSCXMslk/view

FMA’s YouTube channel: lots of good research tips: many tips including writing, publishing, and getting ideas in finance.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8DwvveNIZMmrlaSZJzveqw

Links to tips collected by other professors

Claes Bäckman's resources for PhD students

https://sites.google.com/view/claesbackman/tips-for-phd-students

Tips for Economist: Many tips on economics research (from getting ideas to leading a department)

https://sites.google.com/site/mkudamatsu/tips4economists

Advice for Phd Students in Economics

https://sites.google.com/view/econgradadvice/

The Econ Resources & Grad School Wiki

https://www.visualizecuriosity.com/econ-wiki

RA and Pre-doc advice and resources from Zahra Thabet

https://zahrathabet.com/resources.html#pre-doc-advice-and-resources

Research tips links listed by Shanjun Li (Cornell)

http://li.dyson.cornell.edu/phdRes.php

Research tips links list by Jiekun Huang (UIUC), one of my coauthors and friends

https://www.huangjk.info/useful-links

(* highly recommended)

0. Basics

* How to read research papers efficiently (in Chinese)

https://www.zhihu.com/question/67950192/answer/258113297

* Time Management

https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/23909697635

1. How to get good research ideas

* Page 1 and 2 of Tips for Finance Ph.D. students, by Luke Taylor, Wharton

http://home.bi.no/charlotte.ostergaard/students/TaylorTips.pdf

* How to select/screen research ideas (in Chinese)

https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/600212991

*Chapter 2 of Weisbach (2021) "The Economist’s Craft"

Pedersen, How to Succeed in Academia,

* Weisbach, Micheal, 2015, What topics are hot and why? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fog0aw5aXL8

2. Executing an idea and writing

* Cochrane (2005) "Writing Tips for Ph.D. Students,"

David J. Denis, Writing for Publication, FMA Doctoral Consortium, 2014, Nashville, TN

* Michael Roberts (University of Pennsylvania) on writing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xoRxBQH3c0&t=2405s

3. Marketing and publishing a paper, networking

* Athey, Susan, top10_list_Networking,

Harvey, Campbell R., Reflections on Editing the Journal of Finance, 2006-2012 (July 10, 2015). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2191787

Subrahmanyam, Avanidhar, How to Make Finance Scholarship More Creative and Equitable: An Author’s Suggestions to Editors and Referees (February 25, 2013). China Accounting and Finance Review, Forthcoming. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2224060

Spiegel, M. (2012), ‘Reviewing Less—Progessing More’, Review of Financial Studies 25 (5): 1331-1338.

Welch, I. (2014), ‘Referee Recommendations’, Review of Financial Studies 27 (9): 2773-2804.

Placement of finance graduates from Hong Kong and Singapore Universities

HKUST

https://fina.hkust.edu.hk/programs/phd/past-placements

HKU

https://phd.hkubs.hku.hk//people/graduate-placement

CUHK

https://www.cuhk.edu.hk/fin/research/phd_graduates.pdf

National University of Singapore

https://bschool.nus.edu.sg/finance/phd/placements/

Singapore Management University

https://business.smu.edu.sg/programmes/phd-business-finance-research/phd-students-profile/phd-alumni

Nanyang Technological University

https://www.ntu.edu.sg/business/admissions/phd-programme/areas-of-specialisations/banking-finance/phd-student-profiles

Selected good placements

Many HKUST PhD graduates have good placements (London Business School, University of Toronto, SMU, and Georgia Tech). Good placement from other universities include:

Simba Xin Chang (NTU)

https://personal.ntu.edu.sg/changxin/

Chen Tao (NTU)

https://personal.ntu.edu.sg/jtchen/

Si Cheng (Syracuse University)

https://si-cheng.net/

Hao Jiang (Michigan State Univ.)

https://broad.msu.edu/profile/hjiang/

Wensi Xie (HKU)

https://www.bschool.cuhk.edu.hk/staff/xie-wensi/

Sarah Wang (Warwick)

https://www.wbs.ac.uk/about/person/qian-wang/