Here is the description of term paper:
Term Paper
Students will write a term paper focusing on a question of practical or scholarly importance. After developing a researchquestion, and formulating a hypothesis, the main tasks involved in carrying out an applied econometric study include:identifying and accessing cross-sectional or panel data (no time series), formatting the data for analysis, analyzing the datausing appropriate statistical techniques, and producing tables that summarize the data and report the results of the analysis.The term paper will also survey econometric literature and describe economic theory that relates to the question. All students must read Stock and Watson’s chapter titled, “Conducting a Regression Study Using EconomicData,” at: http://wps.aw.com/wps/media/objects/11422/11696965…Follow the instructions detailed in thisChapter. By March 1, you will choose a topic, collect data, and write up an outline that contains your project’s title, five
sections with section names, a one sentence research question, detailed data references, and the regression equation youplan on estimating (making clear what is the unit of observation.) On either May 3 or 10 you will make a short, six-minute presentation, using lecture slides, submitting a rough draft on the day you present. The final paper is due on 5/23. All papers must have five sections with the following section titles: Introduction, Literature Review andEconomic Theory, Description of Data, Empirical Results, and Conclusion. In addition, all papers must have thefollowing three tables: Variable Descriptions, Summary Statistics, and Regression Results. These tables must beformatted exactly as described in class. All papers must also write out and at least one equation describing the empiricalmodel. See Holian (2014) for a paper that closely follows this format. As a set of minimal standards for regression models, all papers should report several model specifications (say 5or 6) in Table 3. One of these specifications should contain at least four distinct variables (e.g a polynomial specificationof one variable does not count as more than one), and two of the variables must be continuous. Finally, you shouldestimate at least one nonlinear model, i.e. include polynomial, logarithmic, and/or interaction variables. Students whoestimate a more advanced model, such as one that uses Panel Data will earn extra credit. In the Conclusion, all studentsmust critically evaluate the models they present, based on SW Ch 9, and discuss ways to improve them in future work.
My term paper topic is Crime and Social Conditions: Is Poverty or Inequality to Blame? Is the research question of examining whether poverty or inequality impacts crime more. You can choose either one year or multiple years as the analysis problem. Please use 2015 as the year base and the analysis data if you choose one year only. Although there are a lot things, each section is within 5-7 sentences. I will provide two website as the data set.
Also, the attachment file is the outline of this paper. However, my professor gives me some feedback so do not follow all the information of the outline. Here is the feedback from my professor: This is a good topic. But rather than choose four states, you should use all 50. It would also be good if you gathered data from multiple years and assembled a panel data set. I like the research question of examining whether poverty or inequality impacts crime more. Your research question could be: Crime and Social Conditions: Is Poverty or Inequality to Blame?
So you should analyze whether poverty or inequality increase crime or not.
Here are two websites:
1)https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data/data-tables-and-tools/data-profiles/2015/
2)https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2015/crime-in-the-u.s.-2015/tables/table-5
