Assignment:
Labor economics
Project guideline
For the project you are required to identify and investigate an economic issue/problem using the economic theory you learned in this course.
The project will be an individual or joint work up to two people. If you wish to do a joint work, select your group member carefully. It would be unwise to form a group in which no member has strong written communication and/or sound knowledge of economic theory.
Each member should exert as much efforts as possible in writing the final paper. Everyone in the same group will receive the same grade for the paper.
The project is worth 10 percent of the course grade and there are two components to the project: a proposal, and the final paper.
Examples of some suggested topics
Income inequality
Current issues in global labor market
Impact of immigration on the U.S. labor market
Gender Racial earnings gap
Racial earnings gap
Returns to education (College vs. non-college graduates)
Unemployment insurance
Minimum wage
Aging population
Sports economics
Global labor economic issues
1) Proposal:
The format of your proposal will be 2 or 3 pages in single spaced Times New Roman font size 12 (just like this document). Skip a line between paragraphs. The proposal will include group members' names and a detailed outline of your project. They are:
Brief introduction to the topic and the economic questions to be addressed
Why does this topic deserve your research attention?
Brief discussion of economic theory and econometric model if you had taken data analysis courses such as ECO 315 Econometrics (optional)
How will you obtain data set for this research if applicable?
Some references (at least 5) and brief description of their contents
Your proposal should include all the things you will have done by the due date. Be sure to include your data analysis results such as summary statistics of the variables you are using.
I suggest that you create a table with summary statistics of the variables you are using in the project. Describe the variables you are using and highlight any interesting or noticeable patterns from your table of summary statistics. These are just a few examples of items to be included in the Interim summary