(Solved by Humans)-Hi! to a specialist in economics and the environment, I need your

Question

Hi! to a specialist in economics and the environment,

I need your help restructuring this paper more economically rather than politically as I did. Since the course is economics and the environment, I have some comments in red in the paper from the professor and two more suggestion and comments. Could you please help??

Economics 324 Spring 2016
Seminar in Environmental and Natural Resource Economics
Each student will complete a research paper on a topic of your choosing related to environmental and
resource economics.
This course examines key issues in the economics of the environment and natural resources. Stu- dents
must have successfully completed Intermediate Microeconomics (ECO 250) and Introduc- tion to Statistics
and Econometrics (ECO 220) or equivalent courses. A course covering environ- mental or other applied
microeconomic policy issues would be helpful.
The course has two primary objectives. First, the course is designed to familiarize you with some of the
current research in the field of environmental economics and to teach you to digest and critically evaluate
original economic research articles in the field. Second, the course is designed to teach you to conduct your
own economic research through the preparation of a major research paper.
I recommend that your paper follow one of three models:
1.

An analytical paper that uses economic theory to answer a specific question. If you choose this
model, you will need to articulate a narrative economic model of some real world situa- tion and
use your model to analyze that situation. Your question can be explanatory (why is some particular
phenomenon occuring?), predictive (what will happen as the result of some change?), or
prescriptive (what should someone (often a policymaker) do in a particular situation?).

2.

An empirical paper that uses statistical analysis to answer a specific question. If you choose this
model, you will need to articulate a specific question, identify data that can be used to answer the
question, analyze the data using appropriate statistical techniques, and present your conclusions.

3. A valuation study proposal that develops a specific study design to value a particular envi- ronmental
amenity. If you choose this model, you will need to select a valuation method that is appropriate to the
benefit you wish to estimate and develop all the details needed to implement the study, from survey design
to data analysis. Depending on your specific ques- tion and approach, you may not need to actually
implement the survey during the semester, although if you would like to do so, it is possible if you select
your topic and start the process early.
There are a couple other paper approaches that you could consider including a benefit transfer study (where
benefits estimates from one study and location are used to estimate benefits in a different region) or a costbenefit analysis. If you are interested in adopting one of these approaches or have another idea, please come
talk to me early in the semester so we can make sure that your idea is feasible and consistent with the
assignment guidelines.
The final paper should be 3500-4500 words (15-20 pages double-spaced). There is no explicit length target
for the draft, but to get a good grade, it must include: a research question, some findings, and all of the
relevant elements of the main body of whatever type of paper you have chosen. The standard for how
polished they need to be is lower on the draft, but you do not have a complete draft if you have entirely
omitted one of these elements (with the caveat that some final papers will have a somewhat different
structure than described below).
General Writing Tips



Minimize the use of the first person (I) in your paper, but do not feel that you need to eliminate it
entirely. Saying ?I find ...? or ?I use data on ...? or ?I assume? is perfectly acceptable. Avoid the
use of phrases like ?I think? or ?I believe.? Better alternatives would be ?My analysis
suggests ...? or ?my results support ...?



Avoid the ?royal? we while writing. That is, since your papers are single-authored, avoid the use
of phrases like ?We use data on ....?. It is okay to use ?we? when it is clear that the reference is to
you and your reader as in ?Because economic theory predicts that monopolists will restrict
quantity to raise price, we would expect to see higher prices on average in locations served by a
single supplier.?



Proofread your paper. Please make use of your software?s automated spell-checker AND its
grammar checker if it has one. Please consider having someone else read your paper before
handing it in (this is especially true if you are a non-native English speaker). Make sure you do
this for the draft as well.



Target your paper to your classmates rather than me. That is, make sure you explain the important
parts of the economic theory you use to someone who is familiar with standard undergraduate
economic theory and has had exposure to some of the basic ideas we have discussed in class, but
do not expect your reader to be familiar with all of the papers you cite or to remember the specific
details of a paper we discussed in class.



Use parenthetical citations in your paper and use the present tense when discussing other papers:
Galiani et al (2005) find that privatization was associated with reductions in child mortality in
Argentina or Institutional details can strongly influence the effectiveness of water markets
(Bjornlund and McKay, 2000). Do not list first names or article titles in the text of the document
unless there is something specific about those that is important to your paper. Use a consistent
citation style for your references that refers to papers by author and date rather than numerical
references. I am not picky about the precise citation style, but please check the format for nonstandard entries if you are using bibliographic software to generate your references. (A tip: Google
scholar does a nice job of formatting most references in several standard formats if you assemble
your bibliography manually).



Follow standard practice on citing your sources. I take academic honesty very seriously and will
report plagiarism on either the draft or the final paper to the Honor Board. Re- member that
ultimate goal of citation/attributtion: to make sure your reader knows what arguments/ideas are
yours, which ones came from someone else, and who the source of those other arguments was.

Any text taken directly from any source needs to be in quotation marks. Arguments or statements that are
paraphrased from other sources must be cited as well. In most cases, you will have few if any direct
quotations in your papers. You should cite sources for specific theories or models that you rely on but do
not need to cite sources for standard economic theories. Please ask if you are unsure whether a
theory/model needs to be cited, but a general rule of the thumb is that if something appears in textbooks
without specific citations, you can assume the basic idea is common economic knowledge and does not
need to be cited. When in doubt, cite the source or ask me.
Paper Structure
The precise structure your paper will take depends on your specific question and approach, but most will
follow one of the two patterns below at least loosely. You do not have to structure your paper with each of
these elements having its own subheading, but having this general format in mind will likely help you make
sure you explain all the important parts of your analysis to your audience. Feel free to modify as you see fit.

Remember that the ultimate goal is to answer your research question and convince your readers (me and
your classmates) that we should believe your answer. Everything should be structured with that in mind.
Abstract
Although you should write it last (or at least near the end), your paper will begin with an abstract. As
you?ve seen from the journal papers we?ve read, the abstract is a short, consice statement of what the paper
does and what the key results are. Do not keep your reader in suspense. Aim for 100-200 words (less is
better) and do not include more than one short sentence motivating your topic or setting it in context.
Introduction
Like the abstract, the introduction goes near the beginning of the paper, but it is often difficult to craft a
good introduction until you have completed much of the research. Plan to substantially revise your
introduction once you have completed the body of the paper and are sure of what your main points are. The
introduction (outside of the literature review which may be included in it) should be no more than two
pages double spaced and should answer the following questions:


What methods are you using to answer the question? You do not need to get into too much detail
in the introduction, but we should have a rough sense of what your approach will be by the time
we finish the introduction.



What data or evidence are you using to answer your question (if applicable)?



What are your key findings/recommendations? An economics paper isn?t a mystery novel. Tell us
your basic results in brief form up front so we can be assessing how you build to this conclusion
throughout the entire paper. Note that in comparing this paper to the typical paper structure
taught in writing courses, the answer to this question serves as the thesis of your paper.
Everything you do in the paper should be designed to convince us that we should believe these
findings and any recommendations you make.

? At very end of the introduction, include a paragraph describing the contents of the rest of the paper.
Literature Review The literature review portion of the paper may be part of the introduction or a separate
section, depending on what makes the most sense to you. Your literature review should be clearly focused
on putting your work in context. You should regularly connect the papers back to your research question.
Questions/themes that may appear in your review include a discussion of related themes/trends in the
literature, areas of agreement/disagreement in previous papers, areas that have been heavily researched and
those that need additional study, the degree of support for your hypothesis in the existing literature, and a
discussion of how your research fits into the existing literature.
Your literature should be comprehensive, but not necessarily exhaustive. It does need to cover everything
ever written that relates to your topic, but should be up-to-date and should provide the intellectual context
and motivation for your research. It helps your reader to know how what you?ve done relates to previous
work and what is new and helps to motivate why this study is important. With this in mind, your should
discuss some or all of the following:


The development of the methodology, framework, or model that you are using in your analysis. If
your paper will apply an existing model/approach/technique (commonly the case), you should cite
the original papers that developed the technique and recent notable examples of its application.
Many of you may follow an existing paper?s approach quite closely. This paper should be
discussed in detail in your review. If you are developing a new methdology, framework or model

(less common), you should discuss papers that used similar models and identify what your model
will add (in general terms, save the specifics for your model section).


Papersintheliteraturethathaveanoticeableoverlapinquestion,keytopic,and/ortechnique. Common
examples would be a paper that applies the same technique to a different specific problem, papers
that answer the same question in a different location, papers that address the same question with a
different technique/data, and papers that address a closely related question.



Papers whose results motivate your question



Papers whose results will justify or explain any important assumptions you make in your paper.
Main Body of an Analytical Paper
Note: you may find it more natural to organize the body of your paper in a different fashion, but
be sure you are internally clear about the three different types of tasks described here.

In this section, you should develop a narrative model of the economic situ- ation your paper is discussing.
You should focus on identifying whose choices drive the outcomes you are concerned about and developing
an economic story explaining how those decisions are made. You may want to use graphs or equations in
this portion of your paper but are not required to. In developing this model/story, focus on your classmates
as the target audience. Your model should clearly identify why there is a problem that might need to be
solved.
Economic ?Model?
Impact of Policies/Changes in Your Model In this section, you should use your narrative model to predict
how various policies or changes you consider will impact the choices described above and how this will
alter the outcomes of interest. In this section, you should focus on what we call positive analysis of the
policies/changes. In other words, predict the effects but save most value judgements about these effects for
your argument.
Argument/Recommendation Using the mechanics developed in the previous two sections, you should make
an argument/recommendation. You are free to use any criteria you feel are appropriate in identifying the
policy you recommend, but you will also need to justify and explain to your audience why the criteria you
have selected are appropriate.
Main Body of an Empirical Paper
Economic Story In this section, you should give us a rough economic story about what?s going on your
analysis? This will not be as developed as the model in an analytical paper but you should still develop
some economic motivation here. You may find it useful to refer back to some of the empirical papers we
have read in class.
Data In this section, you will describe the source of your data and provide various summary statistics about
the data. You want to discuss any data issues and any adjustments you had to make in the this section. You
may also be able to motivate your main story with a simple comparison in this section.
Empirical Model In this section you will describe your regression model, explain the underlying
assumptions you are making and talk about how the regression results will help you answer your question.

Results In this section (which you may decide to combine with the previous one), you will present and
discuss your results. You do not need to discuss every number in your results, but should talk about the key
messages to take away from the results. Format your result tables to be relatively easy to read by using a
reasonable number of decimal places based on the data and making it easy for your readers to identify
which coefficients are statistically significant.
Discussion & Conclusion (for any type of paper)
In this (likely brief) section, you will discuss the implications of your analysis and briefly reiterate the main
point. Unlike the mystery novel approach to writing, there shouldn?t be any major sur- prises here. If
you?ve done your job well in the previous sections, the summary/conclusion aspect of this section will be
exactly what your reader expects. In the discussion portion, you should mention any important caveats or
qualifications to your analysis. You may also want to suggest directions for further research or analysis.
You may also want to talk about broader implications of your results.