Monetary Policy and the Conduct of the Federal Reserve
Spring 2009
Brady
Assignment Handout #3: An Outline for a Research Paper
Below is a general Outline/Guide for writing a Research paper for 475C. Use this
general structure for your own paper or as a guide, with modifications made as
necessary.
The Basic Outline
I.
II.
III.
IV.
Introduction
Literature Review
Economic Method
A. Introduction to Economic Method
B. Discussion of Regression Analysis
C. The Data
D. Discussion of Regression Results and Economic Analysis
Conclusion
The Outline Description
I. Introduction
Notice that I ask you to attempt to write an introduction before much of your paper has
been written. This is a way for you to get started, to think about what you are studying.
However, once you have written more of the paper—hammered out your main thesis,
collected data, and conducted regression analysis—you will necessarily have to revise
your introduction. A common misperception in college is that “good” writers “get it” on
the first draft. Nothing could be further from the truth. So revise, and revise again as you
go along. In the final draft, your introduction will probably run from 3 to 5 pages.
In the final draft, your introduction should summarize your entire paper. This
should include a statement telling the reader your final conclusions and results.
II. The Literature Review
See Handout #2.
III. Economic Method
This is the main body of your paper and can be broken down in the following manner:
A. Introduction to Economic Method. This is basically a “mini” introduction
to this section.
--Here you restate or clarify your main hypothesis and discuss what economic
theory says about your research question or hypothesis. You do not need to
prove a model—simply explain how economic theory explains or motivates
your question. This is where you would explain how your topic relates to the
Credit Channel, or the Asset Price Channels we discussed, or to the ISLM
graph you learned in your intermediate macro course. This mini-
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Monetary Policy and the Conduct of the Federal Reserve
Spring 2009
Brady
introduction might typically be between 2 and 3 pages (or more if you
think it is necessary to expound on theory, for example).
B. Discussion of Regression Analysis
Here you explain how you are going to use regression analysis to test your
research question (e.g., are housing prices sensitive to a change in the federal
funds rate?).
--Explain the regression equation you are using—the variables you have
included in the regression and why you have included the variables (e.g.,
economic theory tells us that consumption is function of income, wealth,
interest rates, etc.). This explanation will typically be between 1 to 3 pages.
C. The Data
Explains in detail your data source—what data you are using in your
regression, where you found it, for what years you have it, etc.? This
explanation should be approximately 1 page.
D. Discussion of Regression Results and Economic Analysis
Here you report the regression results. Do this by showing the results in a
Table(s) (how to properly construct a table or chart will be discussed later in
the course), and then explain your results in the text. Explain to the reader
what the results mean—do the results support your hypothesis; do the results
agree with economic theory, etc.? Also, here you need to emphasize why or
how your results are important—why should they matter to the Federal
Reserve and Ben Bernanke if he were reading your paper? Notice you can
also discuss other possible implications of your analysis. For example,
perhaps the results are unexpected and raise new questions. This section
might run anywhere from 2 to 5 pages.
IV. Conclusion
The conclusion summarizes—reminds the reader—what you set out to do, what you did,
and then, what you conclude based on your economic analysis. Here you can emphasize
what your paper/research means for Monetary Policy, for economic research and for
economists overall. Tell the reader what they have learned. The conclusion can run
anywhere from a page to two pages (or longer if desired, but don’t go overboard).
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