好的经济学研究怎么开展,LSE的教授详细指导文书

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Research is hard! 研究是比较难的。

It is hard foreveryone, even the best researchers. There is no template: you have to learn itby trial and error. Mostly error! There are no clear rules (including any ofthe ones below!)

Most ideasfail. This means it’s important to generate many ideas, sort out the good fromthe bad ones quickly, and not be frustrated. If you can’t handle failure, andacademic career may not be for you.

Talk to people:your fellow students, faculty, but also non-economists, etc.

Whatmakes a good project, research question?

It should beinteresting – original – feasible. Tradeoff: the more novel is what you aredoing, the lower the standards for execution you will get away with.

Three broadcategories of research in economics:

• real theory:contribute a mechanism forothers

• applied theory:illuminate the economics of a particularissues

• empirical work:test a model or estimate aparameter

Both theory andempirics: don’t just change an assumption compared to previous work at will,motivate why you expect this particular change in assumptions to make a bigdifference in terms of insights gained. A good topic will have a strongmotivation that appeals to a lot of economists (not justyourself).

Howdo I find a topic, idea?

• Go to seminarsbut not too many (go to at least one real seminar and one Ph.D. work-in-progress seminar aweek).

• Read but don’tread too much (look at abstracts of JPE, QJE, AER, or NBER working papers,etc.)

• Read surveyarticles in your research field (Journal of Economic Literature, Handbooks ofEconomics); but grad students elsewhere will read thosetoo!

• Read old journals

• Read bad journals

• Read journals inother socialsciences

• Read thenewspaper

• Talk to eachother

• Talk tonon-economists about issues that interest you as aneconomist

• Finddatasets/readcodebooks

• For empiricalwork: you come across a goodinstrument

• Never takeanything forgranted

• Why did you studyeconomics in the firstplace?

You should fromvery early on work on a concrete project (i.e. something with the potential tolead to a research paper), however modest. Working on a project in a clearlydefined research area is typically the best way to see new questions, avenues,etc. Just going to the library, browsing the internet, doing literaturereviews, etc., while sometimes necessary, should never be an occupation formore than a few days, particularly after your first summer of research. Whichdoes not mean that you shouldn’t constantly be thinking about new researchideas (in the shower, in the bus, in seminars, …).

Don’t expectto get a good topic from your supervisor. If it’s a good topic, I will work onit myself.

Triagingideas:

Talk to othersabout your ideas. You might be either

• over-optimisticabout your ideas (after all, they wereyours!)

• too pessimistic (if it was a goodidea, wouldn’t somebody have done it already?) Remember a topic should beinteresting to others in the profession and not just toyou.

Talking to yoursupervisor: Your supervisor (and other faculty) will shoot down many of yourideas but remember: we are your friends, and we help you save time. You don’twant your ideas being shot down in a job market seminar or a thesis exam!

Triaging takeswork:

• What is the bestcase scenario for aproject?

• What is the worstcase scenario for a project? (Would it still result in a publishable paper?)

• What are thecosts of a project? Finding data or data entry, programming work, proving atheorem,etc.

• How much insightcan you get on a project from two weeks of work? Simple analysis of the easiestavailable data, write down the simplest possible model, etc. If it takes youlonger to find out, make sure your supervisor (and better other faculty aswell) feel it is a worthwhile investment oftime.

Working on yourresearch project

Remember theforest for the trees. Work on the big picture first and don’t get bogged downin details early on. Once you get to the details, set aside some time to thinkabout the big picture once a week. Questions can change: sometimes yourresearch may suggest it is more interesting to answer a question different fromthe one you started on.

Be prepared tothrow stuff away if it doesn’t work or detracts from the big picture. You wantthe end product to contain your best work, not everything you have ever doneduring your PhD (nobody else will be interested in hearing about all the thingsyou did which didn’t work).

Progress onresearch is often non-linear: there are often big hurdles, and periods wherenothing seems to go forward, but there are also big leaps.

Early on, itmight be good to think about more than one idea at a time. Sometimes you arestuck with something, and it’s good to put it aside and do something else. Ifyou have a good project, and it’s clear that it’s feasible, drop everythingelse and work on this one only.

When you arestuck with a problem on your research, talk to people. Of course, do try tosolve your problem yourself but if you don’t make progress (for a week or so)talk to other students about it and of course to your supervisor. That’s whatyour supervisor is there for (although often we won’t have the solutioneither). But it is important not to spend weeks or months in a dead end withoutmaking any progress. If there is no way out, try a different alley. Yoursupervisor can give advice on these things.

Organizingyour life

Research takestime, make sure you set aside enough time to work on your research every week.Your research should pervade your life—it’s really an activity that neverstops.

Don’t let otheractivities take over: Because research is hard it is easy to spend time on moreimmediately satisfying activities: teaching, RA work, taking another course,reading too much, the internet.DON’T!

Don’t be aperfectionist: Once you have started on a good question, a typical project ineconomics should yield a draft within six months. Then go on to the nextproject (But do the best you can on a project)

Don’tprocrastinate: Set realistic goals, something you can accomplish. Make sure youare working on SOMETHING all the time, even if it is a modest project.

Giving apresentation in the work-in-progress seminars

Remember thegoal: to get feedback on your work from others. This is different from anacademic seminar you will give later, which also is used to showcase your work.

• Tell us aboutyour work, not the work of others (skip literaturereviews)

• Keep theintroduction short (5minutes!)

• Encourage us tomake comments (here I am stuck, could I do this better?, which alternativeapproach should I take to this issue?). Think about some questions you wouldlike answers to before you give yourpresentation

• Manage your time.Make sure we have an opportunity to comment on the aspects of your work youwould like feedback on

• Getting feedbackmeans being open to making changes, doing things differently. This sometimes mayinvolve throwing out something you have worked on for weeks (which might strikeyou as wasteful – but remember sunk costs!). The goal is to do things better inthe end even if it involves morework

• Did I mention toskip the literaturereview?

Whatis all for? The thesis and the job market

The thesis has toconsist of three chapters.

• Each chaptershould be a paper that can be an academic journal article. A literature reviewdoes not count as a chapter. So your call should be to write one paper eachyear.

• A thesis cancontain co-authored work. One chapter should be solo authored, better two.

• The decisionwhether a thesis is acceptable is up to the examiners. Ask your supervisor foradvice when your work is ready for thethesis.

If you want anacademic job what matters most is your job market paper: one single paper whichshows what type of work you are capable of. Focus on trying to write that paperfrom the beginning; the other chapters will typically appear as by-products.But be prepared that your first attempt may not turn into your job marketpaper.

Theacademic job market process:

• Your preparationshould start in spring prior to the AY when you want to be on the job market.At this point you will be working hard on your job marketpaper.

• In October, youwill give a practice job market presentation in the department, so your paper hasto beready.

• In November, youwill send a large number of job applications to potentialemployers.

These consist of

o    Your job marketpaper

o    Another paperonly if it is very good (a single paper is thenorm).

o    ACV

o   Reference letters from threefaculty. Develop contacts with three potential letter writers during your PhD.

• Most academicinstitution interview candidates at the US AEA meeting at the beginning ofJanuary. You will get invitations for interviews in December. There are otherinterview venues, the RES job market in the UK, a Spanish job market, othersmallerones.

• At the beginningof January you will go to interviews. They typically last for 30 minutes andmostly consist of your brief description of your job market paper withquestions from the interviewers. The interviewers are typically not specialistsin your field. Within a week or two, you will receive invitations for campusvisits.

• Between Januaryand March you will visit universities who are thinking of offering you a job. Avisit typically lasts a day. You give a 90 min. presentation of your job marketpaper, and you meet with individual faculty for the rest of the day. Your jobtalk is the core piece in trying to get a job: both content and presentationmatter. Both parties advertise each other at those visits, i.e. they are alsoyour option to learn about thedepartments.

• In February andMarch candidates receive job offers and decide. Since some candidates andvacancies may remain unmatched a further round may happen at this point,typically at lower ranking departments and for less successfulcandidates.

The mostimportant things to keep in mind for the job market now:

• Write a goodpaper! A job market paper will have to appeal to a broad set of economists. Youwill have to motivate your work for that audience. Don’t choose a very narrowniche or esoteric style for your job marketpaper.

• Practice how topresent well. Grab opportunities to present where you can. Better make mistakesin front of LSE faculty than on the jobmarket.

• During laterstages of your PhD: present at conferences, summer schools (only once you havea good paper).

• Practice talkingabout your research to non-specialists in brief conversations. You will needthis for job interviews, and throughout your academic career as you meet othereconomists. Talk to PhDs in your cohort outside your field, have lunch witheach other, etc. Get used to summarizing what you are working on in a fiveminute presentation.

• Try to become ageneral economist during your PhD, not just a specialist in your field. Followwhat is going on in the profession outside your immediate field. Think aboutpolicy.

来源：How to get started on research in economics? Steve Pischke（因为英文标题很长所以把它放在了文末）

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