School of Economics has partnered with Econsult Solutions to provide you with data used by Econsult on recent consulting projects, whose results you will need to successfully replicate, evaluate, and improve or extend as if you were part of their consulting team.
1. Introduction - Review the relevant Econsult study and related literature and describe your approach to improving upon or extending their main analyses, explaining why this is economically and/or statistically important.
2. Model - Describe the econometric model used by Econsult in their analysis and explain the different modelling choices that you make, including your choice of independent variables and functional form. You should state any hypotheses to be tested along with predictions on the signs of your key independent variables, drawing upon economic theory where appropriate.
3. Data - Beyond the core dataset provided by Econsult, describe the source(s) of any additional data you may also choose to use, and summarize the primary features of your final dataset in a table indicating the number of observations, mean, median, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum for each variable along with anything else you feel may be noteworthy.
4. Results - Present and interpret your econometric results for both the replication and extension of the Econsult project as they relate to the economic question(s) that these were intended to address. Be sure to include the results of econometric tests you performed and compare these to the predictions of the econometric model. Carefully explain any steps you took to correct for econometric problems you may have encountered. Discuss any remaining shortcomings or limitations of your analysis, especially those of an econometric nature.
5. Conclusion - Briefly summarize your main results and suggest any avenues for future research.
6. References - Be very certain to give credit to any references used, including data sources.