Applied Economics Research Course (for pre-master students)

Course goals

Learning objectives
At the end of the course the student is able to:
•      Use the key concepts and theories of their field in economics and recognise the institutional, historical and spatial implications in the context of their research question;
•      Use the comparison with theories to put their research question into perspective;
•      Perform simple quantitative and empirical research or theoretical research. In particular, the focus is on the ability to define and formulate a problem, critically surveying and evaluating academic literature, collect, process and interpret data, and present the analysis and chosen direction of resolution.

Content

The 'Applied Economics Research Course' concludes the pre-master programme. This course builds on the knowledge and skills acquired during the pre-master programme. In most cases, research projects are related to the research programme of one of the participating chairs in economics. In all cases the research should meet academic criteria. The project itself can be both theoretical and empirical in focus. Supervisors will formulate broad topics on which students will do research. In addition, students participate in project groups. In these project groups students present their findings in different stages of their research and give feedback on each other. Before the start of the project groups, workshops on academic writing and academic research are organised. Examples of research topics of recent years include entrepreneurship and economic growth; financial markets and legal systems; economic development, infrastructure, and regional integration; changing labour market institutions; behavioural economics and behavioural finance.

Academic skills
This course focuses on the following academic skills:
 
Information processing
•      Knowledge of potential sources for literature and data and the skills to explore these independently for a comprehensive research project.
•      Being able to detect plagiarism and being able to avoid any kind of plagiarism.
•      Providing correct references in text in a comprehensive research project (APA style).
•      Providing a correct reference list for a comprehensive research project (APA style).
•      Being able to work with data software, such as Excel and Stata.
•      Being able to present self-constructed data in a correct and useful manner in a comprehensive research project.
 
Academic research
For independent academic research (OKVE):
•      Clear and convincing anchoring, relevance, accuracy and functionality of the problem definition.
•      Clear, consistent and accurate research design.
•      Selection of main available sources on the subject; critical evaluation of the literature consulted.
•      If empirical research has been done; in line with the instructions provided in Econometrics.
•      Replicable and falsifiable research, well described arguments, in line with the introduction, with correct references.
•      Strong link between the research and the relevant theories.
•      Clear answer to the problem statement, based on research results, good discussion of the conclusions, in consistency with the introduction and analyses.  
•      Replicable and falsifiable research, well described arguments, in line with the introduction, with correct references.
 
Format 
Workshops (academic writing, academic research), project groups and personal supervision. 

Assessment
-          Final research paper 80%
-          Group participation and presentation 20%
 
Effort requirement
Attendance of and participation in all project group sessions and workshops.
The effort requirement is strictly enforced: only in case the course coordinator has approved in advance students can deviate from the above requirement.

In case online access is required for this course and you are not in the position to buy the access code, you are advised to contact the course coordinator for an alternative solution. Please note that access codes are not re-usable meaning that codes from second hand books do not work, as well as access codes from books with a different ISBN. Separate or spare codes are usually not available.