ECON 191, Fall 2012 Guidelines for Writing an Economics Research Paper
Writing a good economics paper is both an exciting and a nontrivial task. It requires a sustained effort in identifying an important question and in developing a credible model to think about that question or a testable hypothesis to answer it. In many cases it may require collecting data that gives the opportunity to test the hypothesis that you develop. You are encouraged to structure your paper in four parts: introduction, literature review, body, and conclusion. A brief abstract of no more than 100 words should precede your paper.

Introduction
Identifying a significant and well formulated question is the single most important part of the research process and the most difficult as well. A good research question has to be concise (remember, you are writing a 15-page paper, not a book), feasible and important. Choosing a research question requires balancing importance and feasibility. Feasibility means tractability for theoretical research and data availability for empirical research. Whenever you come up with an idea for a research question, always try to think about a critic sitting in front of you asking “Why should I care about this?” Consider this question to be a first filter for your research question. Identify a well-defined research question. The introduction is where you (1) present the research question, (2) motivate why it is important and briefly outline (3) how you go about answering it and (4) what your key results are. Be sure to be clear how your research question relates to material learned in Econ 196, and why the existing literature may not answer the question adequately. To write a successful introduction, you will need to have read and understood previous academic work by economists (or other social scientists) that relates to your research question. You should also be