Harvard University Department of Economics
Harvard University Department of Economics
Ec985: Senior Research Seminar
2011-2012
Objective
The Ec985 series of courses provides a forum where students pursue their independent thesis research. Various Ec985 seminars—each led by an Ec985 instructor—are offered to cover a range of student thesis topics, with roughly 8-12 thesis writers per seminar. The Ec985 seminars and instructors are integral in the process of guiding students from the beginning stages of research to the final product of a high-quality thesis.
The Role of the Ec985 Instructor
While each thesis student will have a faculty advisor, the Ec985 instructor’s role is fundamental to a student’s progress on their thesis and the quality of work they produce. The style of each Ec985 course may differ slightly, but Ec985 instructors have the same fundamental goal: helping thesis writers in the transition from student to scholar, leading them to conduct sound research and produce high-quality work.
Part of becoming a scholar also involves understanding, critiquing, and contributing to the work of others. Thus, a related role of the Ec985 seminar and instructor is to foster discussion and peer-review among the students within each seminar.
Meetings
In the fall semester, there will be weekly Ec985 meetings. These will take the form of (1) group meetings with all thesis writers, (2) seminar meetings led by the Ec985 instructor, and (3) individual meetings between the Ec985 instructor and each of their seminar students. Throughout the semester, there will be several deadlines to ensure thesis writers are progressing on their research and to provide them with feedback on their ideas, both from the Ec985 instructor and from fellow students.
In the spring semester, there will be one all-thesis meeting and one seminar meeting; the bulk of guidance will come in the form of individual meetings between the Ec985 instructor and the seminar students.
Thesis Content
Acceptable theses are those which make a worthwhile contribution to the literature. Sometimes this contribution comes from an interesting empirical or theoretical result, but other times contributions can arise from showing how an apparently promising avenue of research may not prove fruitful. Though there is no minimum or maximum length for theses, each thesis should have a reasonable idea, developed well enough for submission to an economic journal.
The Role of Deadlines
There is a natural human propensity toward procrastination. Unfortunately, procrastination is lethal when combined with academic research (which is by definition unpredictable). Moreover, the effects of procrastination can be even worse for young researchers, who may not understand how long particular parts of their projects will take (especially those parts that involve data). Hence, a series of deadlines and deliverables will ensure that thesis writers make steady progress on their research and produce high-quality theses.
Additional Note
Students will receive a letter grade for the first semester, which will be overwritten by the full-year course grade if the student completes the full year. If the student decides to end the course mid-year and not take 985 the second semester, the first-semester grade will be the final grade for the course.
2011-2012 Schedule for Thesis Writers
Fall Semester
Week of 8/29:
Group meeting of all Ec985 instructors.
8/31: First day of classes
Tuesday, 9/6:
All-thesis meeting. Welcome, info, logistics, etc from Jeff Miron and others. Main idea: give students an idea of what needs to be done in the coming weeks to get them on-track for a productive thesis-writing semester. Will be followed by snacks.
Week of 9/12:
First meeting of individual Ec985 seminars. Welcome, overview of 985, plans for semester, brief group discussion of students’ ideas and interests. If time allows, instructor can lead a discussion about their area of research, areas in that field that are particularly hot, areas that might be neglected, and/or current research in that field. Talk about what students should do in the next two weeks before the next meeting. In general, “What you should be doing in coming weeks” will be incorporated into every class.
Week of 9/19:
Meet individually with Ec985 instructor. Goal: make sure student has an advisor and topic or is on track to doing so. If not, guide them on getting this done.
Wednesday, 9/28, 8:30-10am:
All-thesis meeting. Led by Jeff Miron, focusing on a review of econometrics. Hot breakfast provided!
Deliverables: This week, students must submit a one-page prospectus to the Ec985 instructor which will be discussed with the advisor in the next week’s individual meetings. This prospectus should be based on a specific question. (For example, a project describing the theory of tax incidence is not as good as asking the specific question of whether consumption taxes are preferable to income taxes.)
Week of 10/3:
Meet individually with Ec985 instructor. Goal: make sure students have a clear thesis question and are reasonably knowledgeable of where their work fits in existing literature. With help of instructor, students should outline steps needed to get to (1) the draft due in December and (2) the final product due in March. For example, if the work is empirical, think about what data will be needed and how they want to approach it econometrically. Or, if they’ve already found some data, talk about whether it’s sufficient, or they need more, etc. If the work is theoretical, think about the modeling they’ll need to do and how to get started. Perhaps discuss what math prep they’ll need to do to be ready for that modeling.
Deliverables: This week, presenters for the 10/3-week seminar turn in two documents: (1) a justification for the thesis for the Ec985 instructor and (2) a revised one-page prospectus. The justification document explains why the thesis topic is interesting and important. In many cases, this document will include a review of important articles, books, and results pertaining to the main question, but this review should not just be a summary of related papers; it should be a critical review focused on explaining why the student’s question needs to be answered and explaining how that question relates to existing research. The idea is to show that there is an interesting, important, and unanswered question that the student's project can help address. This document should be no more than five pages long. The literature summarized can relate to the background of the issue, the actual issue, the methodology used to address it, the use of data sets and of theory, and so forth. In the final paper and thesis, these summaries can be integrated into the work if and when they are relevant. The instructor should distribute the revised one-page prospectuses to the class ahead of time so students can prepare questions and comments.
Week of 10/10:
Seminar meeting. Half of the students present a detailed discussion of what they plan to work on. In particular, they should be ready to discuss with the class a couple of pieces of related work that their thesis builds on. Non-presenters should be prepared with questions and comments, based on the prospectuses they received ahead of time.
Deliverables: This week, presenters for the 10/10-week seminar turn in two documents: (1) a justification for the thesis for the Ec985 instructor and (2) a revised one-page prospectus. The justification document explains why the thesis topic is interesting and important. In many cases, this document will include a review of important articles, books, and results pertaining to the main question, but this review should not just be a summary of related papers; it should be a critical review focused on explaining why the student’s question needs to be answered and explaining how that question relates to existing research. The idea is to show that there is an interesting, important, and unanswered question that the student's project can help address. This document should be no more than five pages long. The literature summarized can relate to the background of the issue, the actual issue, the methodology used to address it, the use of data sets and of theory, and so forth. In the final paper and thesis, these summaries can be integrated into the work if and when they are relevant. The instructor should distribute the revised one-page prospectuses to the class ahead of time so students can prepare questions and comments.
Week of 10/17:
Seminar meeting. The other half of the students do the same as the week of 10/3.
Wednesday, 10/26, 8:30-10am:
All-thesis meeting. Session on using Stata, organizing your data and results, etc, led by a Stata savvy individual. Hot breakfast provided!
Week of 10/31:
Meet individually with Ec985 instructor. Get them on the road for the 11/7, 11/14 week presentations.
Deliverables: This week, students doing empirical papers need to hand in a paper discussing data sources as well as econometric tests that can be run with the data. (Shortcomings of the data should also be discussed—if other researchers have not used this data before, there may be a good reason.) The data should be in hand at this stage and students should be close to compiling basic summary statistics. Students doing theoretical papers need to hand in a paper discussing the model and any particular modeling techniques that will be used.
Week of 11/7:
Meet individually with Ec985 instructor again. Idea: lots of opportunities to make progress for ‘big’ presentations in class in the next two weeks.
Deliverables: Presenters for the 11/7-week seminar need to hand in (1) a document that includes a justification, a brief review of the relevant literature, and the earlier research outline and (2) a revised one-page prospectus. By this time, students should have a sharp idea of what they can (and cannot) do with their project. The revised one-page prospectus should be distributed to class ahead of time so they can prepare questions and comments.
Week of 11/14:
Seminar meeting. Half of the students will make a formal presentation of their thesis question, including (but not limited to): background of the issue, motivation/relevance of their question and contribution to existing literature, data/models they’ll be using, anticipated findings.
Deliverables: Presenters for the 11/14-week seminar need to hand in (1) a document that includes a justification, a brief review of the relevant literature, and the earlier research outline and (2) a revised one-page prospectus. By this time, students should have a sharp idea of what they can (and cannot) do with their project. The revised one-page prospectus should be distributed to class ahead of time so they can prepare questions and comments.
Week of 11/28:
Seminar meeting. The other half of the students do the same as the week of 11/7.
Deliverables: Students need to submit a rough-draft of the 25-page paper due on 12/9. The rough draft will not receive a grade, but the 12/9 paper will.
Week of 12/5:
Meet individually with Ec985 instructor. Last meeting before final paper due. Discuss any remaining questions, as well as what remains to be done for the thesis.
Friday, 12/9: Deadline for students to submit a 25-page paper. This will form the major portion of the first semester grade. If the paper is an empirical paper, the student must have included at least one careful empirical result (e.g., a regression). If the paper is theoretical, the paper must include a workable version of the student's model. This paper will be revised and expanded into the final thesis during the first two months of the spring semester. Celebratory gathering that evening.
Spring Semester
1/23: First day of classes
Week of 1/30:
Meet individually with Ec985 instructor. Goal: touch base, see what needs to be done in the next five weeks, help with any questions that have arisen since December, let students know Ec985 instructor is still available this semester.
Wednesday, 2/8, 8:30-10am
All-thesis meeting: writing up the thesis, presenting your results, perhaps some advanced Stata tips and tricks for doing this. Hot breakfast provided!
Deliverables: presenters for the 2/13-week seminar need to turn in (1) a draft of their thesis to instructor and (2) a 1-2 page summary for distribution to the class ahead of time so they can prepare comments.
Week of 2/13:
Seminar meeting. Formal presentation of work-in-progress for half of the students. Encourage discussion among students. Hand out invitations for advisors to attend the March 8 Champagne Party.
Deliverables: presenters for the 2/20-week seminar need to turn in (1) a draft of their thesis to instructor and (2) a 1-2 page summary for distribution to the class ahead of time so they can prepare comments.
Week of 2/20:
Seminar meeting. Formal presentation of work-in-progress for the other half of the students. Encourage discussion among students. Hand out invitations for advisors to attend the March 8 Champagne Party.
Week of 2/27:
All-thesis relaxation party. Massages and dinner. Have advisor invitations on hand.
3/8: Thesis due at 4pm, without fail. Champagne party!
Week of 3/12: Spring Break
Week of 3/19:
Week of 3/26:
Week of 4/2: Honors exam. Small party afterwards.
Week of 4/9:
Week of 4/16:
Week of 4/23: Junior thesis meeting. Invite top thesis writers to give a short discussion of their theses.
Week of 5/14: Senior Week
5/21: Economics Dept Senior BBQ
5/24: Graduation
1