IMBA Thesis Workshop
Class 1
P. Schuhmann, Spring 2012
Lecture material based on the work of Steven Greenlaw:
Doing Economics: A Guide to Understanding and Carrying Out Economic Research, Steven A.
Greenlaw, 2006. Houghton Mifflin Co.
Available for purchase here:
http://www.amazon.com/Doing-Economics-Understanding-Carrying-Economic/dp/0618379835
Thesis outline
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Title
Abstract
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
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Introduction
Literature review
Theory
Data
Methods
Results
Discussion & conclusions
• References
• Appendices
Thesis Workshop Outline
1. An Overview of Research& the Research
Process
• What do we mean by “Original Research”?
• Research methodologies
• Elements of a good research question
• Writing and evaluating a research proposal
• Steps in writing a thesis
• Writing mechanics and features of good
writing
Thesis Workshop Outline
2. Reviewing the Literature on a Research Topic
• Searching: Google scholar is your friend (but
not your only friend)
• Critical reading
• Summarizing your readings: 5 questions to
answer for each paper
• How to create an annotated bibliography
• When do I stop reading?
Thesis Workshop Outline
3. How to create a readable literature review: The
Literature Review section of your thesis
• Guiding the reader to your research question:
The inverted pyramid
• References and citation styles
4. Making a “contribution to the literature”
• Types of contributions
• Identifying gaps in the literature
• Designing a research study
Thesis Workshop Outline
5. Locating (and Collecting) Data
• Sources of data
• Steps in constructing a data set
• Characteristics of good data sets
• Real vs. nominal magnitudes
• Index numbers
• Cleaning and transforming data
• Identifying and handling outliers
Thesis Workshop Outline
6. Describing your data: The Data section of your
thesis
• Descriptive statistics
• Frequency distributions and histograms
• Smoothing
• Writing and about your data
– Describing sources, transformations, distributions
and outliers
• Important tables to include in your Data section
Thesis Workshop Outline
7. Analysis of data: The Methods section of your thesis
• Alternative methods for hypothesis testing
• Choosing an appropriate method
• Specifying your empirical model
• Consideration of expected signs: The importance of
explaining the theory
8. An introduction to regression analysis in SAS
• Brief review of regression analysis
• More data transformations?
• Problems with regression: Diagnosis and treatment
• Limited dependent variable models
Thesis Workshop Outline
9. Reporting your findings: The Results section of your thesis
• Summarizing the results of hypothesis tests
• What if I accept the null?
• Important Tables to include in the Results section
10. The Discussion section of your thesis
• Discussing the implications of your findings
• Closing the loop: Connecting your paper to the literature
11. Summarize and conclude
• Tell the reader what you told the reader
• Limitations of your efforts
• Future work
An Overview of Research& the
Research Process
Which of the following best describes the idea
of “research”?
A. The search for knowledge
B. The acquisition of knowledge
C. The reporting of knowledge
D. The creation of knowledge
An Overview of Research& the
Research Process
Greenlaw defines research as the creation of
knowledge.
A more complete definition includes notions of
investigation, study and inquiry …
Before we can create new knowledge, we must
first establish a set of facts and understand the
knowledge regarding what those facts mean
(and what they don’t mean).
Research
• Facts = data
• Knowledge = interpretation of the meaning of
facts by creating logical arguments
– “Arguments” here refers to a point of view or
position on what something means, based on
reason and evidence.
– Note: your thesis will include both facts and
knowledge. You will report the facts in a section
called “Results” and you will interpret them in a
section called “Discussion”.
Facts and knowledge
Example
• Facts:
– Return tourists comprise 35% of tourist arrivals in
Barbados
– Tourism is directly responsible for 15% of GDP and is
indirectly responsible for approximately 65% of GDP
– Approximately 25% of tourists use public access points to
get to the beach
– Beaches near public access points in Barbados have
significantly more litter than beaches near large private
hotels
– Tourists who encounter higher levels of litter are less likely
to return
Facts and knowledge
Example
• Knowledge:
– Spending on beach clean-up efforts near public
access points and public education regarding the
economic importance of clean beaches will
provide a higher quality tourism product and
result in higher probability of return visitation.
Research
• Research can be directed toward new discovery
or toward confirmation of earlier discovery.
– Confirmatory research may be less sexy, but is not less
important.
– E.g. Schuhmann et al. (2009) discovered that divers
are willing to pay up to US$20 for additional marine
turtle sightings in Barbados.
– Cazabon et al. (2012) confirmed this result in Tobago.
– Gill et al. confirmed this result in Honduras, Belize and
St. Kitts.
Confirmatory research
• Based on an existing hypothesis, confirmatory
research may include:
– Applying an existing model or theory to new data
(data from a different country or market, data
from a different time period)
– Adding variables to an existing model or theory
– Testing an existing model or theory with a
previously unused methodology
Exploratory research
• New discovery
• Does not begin with a particular hypothesis to
be tested.
• The analyst uses data to uncover the “truth”,
and subsequently creates
theory/hypothesis/explanation.
Research
Whether exploratory or confirmatory in nature,
whether based on the examination of existing
facts & data or based on newly acquired facts &
data, creating new knowledge requires:
1. A systematic examination of existing facts
and knowledge
2. Conclusions based on reason and/or
empirical evidence
Your thesis will create new knowledge
“I’ve just started learning about this material that
people with PhD’s have been studying for decades.
How can I be expected to create something new?”
– Your research does not have to result in a path
breaking, earth shattering discovery.
– Most original research results in only marginal
improvements in our understanding of the world.
– Marginal improvements are very important.
– Without research such as yours, the path breaking,
earth shattering discoveries cannot take place.
– E.g. “saving the world from ecosystem destruction”
Research methodologies
How to create knowledge?
• Scientific methods vs. non-scientific methods
• Non-Scientific methods include intuition and
opinion
– Subject to personal or professional bias
Research methodologies
The scientific method aims to minimize subjectivity:
• Choose an area of interest
• Choose a problem or research question in that area
• Review the existing facts and knowledge
• Apply theory to create a hypothesis about that
problem or question
• Test the hypothesis by comparing its predictions to
evidence based on real world data
• Accept or reject your hypothesis
• Test it again in a different context
• Interpret the results and draw conclusions
The scientific method
• Each step is fraught with pitfalls that may
cause you to return to the beginning of the
process.
– E.g. after reviewing the literature you may need to
revise your research question
– E.g. after retrieving available data, you may need
to reformulate your research question or method
for testing your hypothesis
• The scientific method is often iterative and
repetitive rather than linear.
Operationalizing the scientific method
Elements of an empirical thesis:
• The research topic
• The research question
• The hypothesis
• The data set
• The methodology
The research question
The research question should be problemoriented
• i.e. the aim of a good research question is to
explain some aspect of your research area
(rather than simply describe it).
• Trying to fit the word “why” into observations
from your research area will help you identify
good research questions.
The problem-oriented
research question
For example, consider the following questions:
What types of firms successfully navigated the
financial crisis?
Why did certain firms do better than others
during the financial crisis?
The research question
The research question should be investigative
and diagnostic.
– Investigative: you will study the processes in your
research area.
– Diagnostic: you will explore the nature and
degree of cause-and-effect relationships within
those processes.
Example: What happened during the financial
crisis? How did different types of firms react?
How did those reactions correlate to success?
The research question
The research question should be interesting to
you and to your audience.
– Choose an area and a topic within that area that
makes you think.
– Choose an area that others find notable.
• One with alternative theories
• One with no consensus
• One with important implications
The research question
The research question should be amenable to
empirical analysis.
– Can you conceptualize the research question in
the context of a regression model (or some other
empirical method for testing)?
– Can the variables of concern be measured?
– Is there data that would allow you to estimate
such a model?
The research question
The research question should be feasible given
your time and resource constraints.
– This is largely driven by the availability of data
– Don’t try to do too much
– Be prepared to change
Steps in developing a thesis topic
• Exploration & critical reading in your subject area
• List research questions and their answers
• Identify gaps, weaknesses, areas for
improvement
• Conceptualize a research question
• Search again
• Conceptualize an empirical model
• Search for data
Your research proposal
When you have a grasp on the following, and have much
of it written down, you are probably prepared to defend
your proposal:
• What is the topic area?
• Why is this area important or interesting?
• What is the research question?
• Why is this question important or interesting?
• What do we know about this area?
• What do we know about this question?
• What data and methods will you use to address your
research question?
Your research proposal
Your committee will be thinking about the
following:
• Does the student have a solid understanding
of the research area?
– What has been done?
– Why is it important?
– What are the shortcomings of the existing work?
• Does the student understand how his/her
research question fits within that area?
Your research proposal
• Does the student understand why answering
this question may be important?
• Has the student identified and obtained
sources of data?
• Has the student developed an appropriate
methodology for addressing the research
question?
Get started
• Identify an area of interest
• List topics in that area
• Create a list of keywords (and their synonyms)
that describe these concepts
• Create a list of disciplines that are concerned
with these concepts
• Start searching and reading
• List research questions and their answers
Get started
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Good writing requires revision.
Revision is difficult when the writing is fresh.
Good writing takes time.
The first sentence is often the hardest to write
Getting something on paper (even if it’s a mess) is
key. You can make it pretty later.
• Start with an outline (use the thesis sections as a
guide) and get your thoughts written down.
Get started
• Search keywords with:
– Causes of
– Determinants of
– Factors associated with
– Implications of
– Consequences of
– An analysis of
– Etc…
• The abstract is your guide
The literature dump
• Schuhmann’s method:
– Create a file folder
– Search
– Read abstracts
– Save relevant papers in your file using titles that
reveal the topic (maybe paper title)
– Keep a word document for papers that you need
to find/access
– Search forwards & backwards from key papers
The annotated bibliography
• An annotated bibliography is a list of citations
to books, articles, and documents. Each
citation is followed by a brief descriptive and
evaluative paragraph, the annotation. The
purpose of the annotation is to inform the
reader of the relevance, accuracy, and quality
of the source.
Source: Cornell University Library
Questions to guide your A.B.
You should attempt to answer the following for
each paper you read (1-3 sentences for each):
• Who? (full citation)
• What? (what are the research questions?)
• Why? (why is this important?)
• How? (how was the research question
addressed? i.e. what data and methods were
used?)
• What? (what were the main findings?)
Salas, S., Sumaila, U.R., and Pitcher, T., 2004. “Short-term decisions of small-scale fishers
selecting alternative target species: A choice model”, Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci., 61: 374–383.
Mexico (Yucatan Coast)
CM
No valuation (Other fisheries applications)
A random utility model of daily species target selection is estimated for three fishing communities
of Yucatan, Mexico. The model is estimated using data on expected CPUE and revenues from
spiny lobster and octopus, opportunity costs of fishing for alternative targets, the opportunity
cost of fishing (i.e. forgone non-fishing earnings), travel costs and weather conditions. One-day
lagged values of CPUE and revenues are used as estimates of expectations. Fisher responses to
changes in species prices and CPUE are simulated. Target choice and target switching are found to
be based on resource availability and revenues from prior trips. Decreases in species-specific
revenues are found to induce switching to alternative targets. However, these effects are not
linear. Price changes appear to have threshold effects on target decisions, depending on the
relative costs and skills required for targeting different species. Increases in the availability of
species are found to direct effort away from other species. Weather is found to influence target
decisions based on associated changes in water clarity and turbidity that differentially affect
species catch. Fisher behavior is heterogeneous across communities, indicating that results from
modeling efforts such as this one may not apply directly to other areas. This work highlights the
importance of understanding fisher behavior for policy development, recognizing that small-scale
fishers make repeated daily decisions regarding whether or not to go fishing, what species to
target or whether to engage in non-fishing employment or gear repair.
Notably, an increase in the availability of octopus may affect the probability of targeting lobster
for two reasons: increased probability of octopus catch and decreased likelihood of lobster catch
due to predation by octopus.
Reid-Grant, K. and Bhat, M.G., 2009. “Financing Marine Protected Areas in Jamaica: An Exploratory
Study”, Marine Policy, 33: 128-136.
Jamaica
WTP for Montego Bay Marine Park (MBMP)
TCM
This paper provides a review of funding sources for marine protected areas as well as empirical analysis
of potential funding sources for the Montego Bay Marine Park. WTP for park maintenance and
conservation by stakeholders is analyzed based on a sample of five hoteliers, 21 tourism-based
businesses and 99 tourists conducted during the summer of 2005.
Using a Poisson specification, a travel cost model of tourist demand was estimated for cruise ship and
air travel visitors using number of trips in the past 5 years as the dependent variable and demographics,
recreation opportunities and quality ratings as independent variables. Consumer surplus for an average
visitor is calculated by integrating under the estimated demand function. Notably, nearly half of tourists
indicated that they would not be willing to donate to the park. CS (net gains above trip costs) per person
is estimated to be US$586 or US$739 per person per trip. Aggregation produces estimates of the total
annual consumer surplus of US$189 and US$993 million for cruise travelers and air travelers
respectively. These consumer surplus values as well as tourist expenditures are compared to the annual
park expenditures (estimated to be roughly US$117,500 in 2010) to make a case for tourist taxes as a
source of park funding.
Three out of five hoteliers stated willingness to donate to conservation efforts (though none were
willing to donate funds directly to the MBMP) and three out of five were willing to provide a means of
collecting donations from hotel guests. Only 38% of tourism-based business owners indicated
willingness to donate to conservation of the MBMP despite the fact that a majority indicated that the
park was important to their business and recognized that anthropogenic activities had an adverse effect
on the quality of the park.
Edwards, P., 2008. “Sustainable Financing for Ocean and Coastal Management in
Jamaica: The Potential for Revenues from Tourist User Fees”, Marine Policy, 33: 376385.
Jamaica
CVM/Contingent Behavior
Willingness to pay an environmental tax to fund ocean and coastal management
activities
This paper examines tourists’ willingness to pay for preservation of coastal systems
under alternative institutional frameworks. Results are used to predict how decreased
coral reef quality might affect visitation decisions and the coastal tourism industry.
Based on a CVM survey administered to a sample of 481 tourists in 2007, mean WTP is
US$130.07 for a general tourism is tax and $165.15 for an environmental tax, which
translate to US$16.16 and $20.52 per person per day. Using estimates of the impact of
these taxes on visitation, the authors suggest that an environmental tax of $1 per
person would cause a 0.1% decline in the visitation rate and would generate revenues
of $1.7 million, which is roughly 88% of the ‘‘best case’’ cost estimate for natural
resource protection provided by coastal zone managers. A $2 per person tax would
decrease visitation by 0.2% and generate revenues of $3.4 million. The authors note
that attempts to capture the entire consumer surplus from visitors would cause
visitation to decline by 52.4%.
Reviewing the literature
• Iterations are normal and to be expected.
• Each good paper you read will likely lead to
more sources.
– Search forward and search backward
• Your review of the literature will most likely
continue throughout the thesis process
Reviewing the literature
• How do I know when to stop reading?
– Never stop reading.
• However, you can start writing when you are
ready to summarize the literature on your topic
in a 15-20 minute presentation.
– Topic area
– Development of the research in chronological order
– Implications
– Gaps and unknowns
Reviewing the literature
– What is the topic area?
– What are the key papers in the topic area?
– Can you present these topics in an order that
leads to your research question?
– Can you present these papers in chronological
order?
– What are the implications of the existing
research?
– What are the gaps and unknowns?
Some past thesis titles
• Empirical Study of Proxies Used to Measure Growth in the Gordon
Model
• Firm valuation and option volume
• Determinants of cross-country acquisitions
• International Financial Structure and Shareholder Returns
• The Initial Pricing of Bonds and Influential Factors
• Asset Allocation in Sovereign Wealth Funds: Government Pension
Fund – Global
• International factors influencing the real estate market in Poland
• The Impact of Culture on Volatility and Performance of Global
Equity Indices
• Stock Price Reaction to Merger and Acquisition Announcements in
Canada
• Covered Calls. Dividend Capture and Sin Stocks: A Portfolio Strategy
Related to Morality
• Post Merger Integration: A Practical Approach of the Asymmetric
Response Model of Demand
• A Comparative Analysis of Market Efficiency: The Case of Russia and the
U.S.
• Profit-maximizing utilization of greenhouse gas permits with a nonmalleable substitute control technology
• Biotechnology Valuation: An Examination of the Drug Development
Pipeline and Board of Director Composition
• The Short-Term Impact of Monetary Policy on Economic Growth and
Inflation
• The Effect of Macroeconomic Factors on Capital Structure Decisions
• Copper prices and Chilean exchange rates
• Financial Impacts of Catastrophic Events
• The relation between currency value and stock returns: Evidence from
Germany