For this project, you are going to use data that has already been used in a published paper. I will give you a list of papers that you can choose from (see the file named ecn723-project-data.pdf),

economics

Description

Project 

For this project, you are going to use data that has already been used in a published paper. I will give you a list of papers that you can choose from (see the file named ecn723-project-data.pdf), but if you’d like to suggest something different, that would be fantastic (I’ll give you a bonus point if you suggest one that is actually useable). The key is that your data must be able to be framed as coming from an experiment (broadly defined), where there are clearly defined treated and non-treated groups. Ultimately, you will focus on answering a causal question such as the following: Does being placed into a small class cause students to perform better academically? Please keep in mind that you aren’t being asked to replicate the paper that used your data previously. Indeed, that paper is likely to have done some things which you could not be expected to even know how to do. The point is just to undertake a comparison of the treated and non-treated groups using a simple regression model.


Submission Instructions 

The project will be completed through 8 weekly “instalments”, each worth 10% of your final grade. The first instalment will be due March 1st and the final instalment will be due April 19th (see below for a detailed timeline). Instalment submissions must be made via the private Dropbox folder I have shared with you (only you, the TA, and I can access this folder). Specifically, each instalment will require you to upload files named project-x.pdf and code-x.txt, where x is the instalment number (e.g., your first instalment will require files named project-1.pdf and code-1.txt). The file named project-x.pdf is to be a PDF file containing the latest version of the write-up for your project; the file named code-x.txt is to be a plain text file containing the latest version of your R code. For the first instalment, you will also need to upload one or more data files (these can be saved in any format you like so long as the R code you upload can process them). You should not ever need to alter these data files after the first submission.


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