How to Write an Economics Paper--Smart Tips from my Smart Colleague

My most senior colleague has written some tips on how to write a research paper in economics. UConn third year paper writers, please take careful notes! Thank you, Subhash Ray, for putting this together. 

Click on the link. 

Four (Not Three?) Steps to Writing an Applied Microeconomics Paper

Students in my PhD Labor course are writing papers this week. I was going to send them this for guidance but then decided I'd share it with all of you. Thank you, Jesse Shapiro for putting it together. 

Confession: I'm not sure I've ever written an aspirational introduction, but I do often write aspirational abstracts. 

And lastly---it's not often you see a four step process for anything. Two steps, sure. Three steps, absolutely. You rarely see four. No wonder writing papers is so tricky! 

How to Choose a PhD Program

The April 15th deadline has come and gone, and so this post is a bit too late for this year's cohort. Nevertheless, I am putting a link to this JPAL article here with the hope that it will be useful for next year. 

For those of you reading this with multiple offers in hand, let me first say, "Congratulations!" I know this is a stressful time, but it really is great news that multiple departments are hopeful about your promise as a future researcher. Let me also plead with you: If you are in this situation, do research the different departments as much as you can before making a decision. However, as you narrow down your decision, please decline offers as soon as possible. Please do not wait for the evening of April 15th to decline offers. 

Congratulations to all of you who have recently accepted offers! We are very excited to meet you! Good luck to all of you who are now starting the process of thinking about where to apply next year. 

Read This if You're Using a DiD Design (and Who Isn't?): "Difference-in-Differences Designs: A Practitioner’s Guide"

My favorite thing: Practitioner's guides to state-of-the art econometrics! 

Here is one fresh of the presses for difference in differences. 

Cool Data Alert: Cross-Gender Social Ties

 Ever wish you could measure cross-gender social ties? Do you have a hypothesis about friendships that you would love to test with data. 

Good news: Data from the paper, "Cross-Gender Social Ties Around the World" (by Mike Bailey, Drew Johnston, Theresa Kuchler, Ayush Kumar, and Johannes Stroebel) is now publicly available. 

Look at that beautiful variation! 

Need Inspiration for a Paper Topic?

Do you need to write a paper for a field course? Are second/third year paper deadlines quickly approaching and every time you think of an interesting question, the necessary data does not exist or there is no exogenous variation or.. We have all been there. My suggestion: Have a peek through this website which compiles information on plausibly exogenous sources of variation. It seems a bit backward, but you may be able to link a right hand side variable from the website with an outcome that you're particularly excited about. Good luck! 

H/T: Treena Goswami 

How to Conference

See this excellent thread with tips on how to conference (thank you, Ben Harrell!). You can think of that as the gold standard for conferencing. You don't have to do it all of it, at least not all of the time. Resting is also important. 

But I can tell you what not to do: Spend the entire time in your hotel room fixing your slides (or writing your discussion) and not participating in the conference at all. A conference is--or at least can be---so much more than your talks. And I'd say try to have fun if you can. Conference travel is one of the big perks of our job. Enjoy them!