ECON 122B University of California Factors affecting Airfare Discussion I will give sample. Below is prof’s paper guidelines 1. Make it fun — pick a topi

ECON 122B University of California Factors affecting Airfare Discussion I will give sample. Below is prof’s paper guidelines

1. Make it fun — pick a topic that is of interest to you. If you are excited about your topic, you will be drawn to it. Writing will feel like play, not work, and your enthusiasm will be reflected in your writing.
2. Do not think that projects should only involve OLS and cross-sectional data. Be flexible and consider the entire variety — time-series, cross-sectional, and panel outcomes. Those who feel more ambitious may even wish to work with variables that are not continuous, e.g., binary, censored, or count outcomes. The appropriate models will be covered in future lectures.
3. Quality is extremely important, quantity is not. I will be looking for interesting and well executed projects rather than being concerned with word or page counts. (See some suggestions on the length of projects below.)

Each project should involve the following main components (sections)
1. Introduction/Motivation: Why is your question interesting and important? Why should anyone care? Have there been earlier studies in this area?
2. Data Description: How were the data collected? Is the data set a cross-section, panel, time-series, etc.? What are the explanatory variables? What is the dependent variable?
3. Methods: What is the estimation technique (OLS, GLS, maximum likelihood, moving averages, etc.)? What are its properties? What software is being used to fit the model?
4. Results: What did you find/learn? Are the parameters consistent with theory? Were trends and seasonality present (if applicable)? Were there differences between subsamples (e.g. gender, race, pre- and post- event, etc.). If you choose to present a forecast evaluation study, please show how well the forecast performs relative to the actual outcomes.
5. Offer brief concluding remarks.

Overall, while emphasis will be placed on quality, not quantity, I expect that your projects will tend to be in the range of 5-10 typed pages, including your figures, tables, and references. Again, because your goal should be to complete a quality project, deviations from the aforementioned page guidelines will not automatically reduce your grade, so no need to play games with line spacing or changing the margins to make the paper fit a mould. What is important is content, not quantity.