IÉSEG School of Management, Paris
September, 8 – 19 September 2014
 Daniel L. Thornton Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis |
 Alain Durré European Central Bank, IÉSEG-School of Management and LEM-CNRS |
Course objective
The purpose of the course is to train graduate students to do high quality empirical analysis in economics and finance with a view to publish their work effectively in a good academic journal.
Many people believe that doing applied work in economics and finance is merely a matter of using the latest statistical and econometric techniques; however, this is not the case.
High quality empirical analysis requires careful planning and, importantly, a research strategy.
The ultimate objective is to produce higher quality applied research. This is accomplished by teaching the participants a strategy for doing empirical research. The importance of this strategy for doing high-quality research will be illustrated using published research and the participants will have an opportunity to implement the strategy in their research under the guidance of the instructors.
Used properly this research strategy can increase both the quality and quantity of an individual’s research.
The course is designed to be taught in two weeks (10 days) :
The first week covers the basic strategy. The strategy is illustrated by showing a number of examples of how this strategy generated high-quality research and examples of how the failure to use the strategy has led some researchers to reach the wrong conclusions.
The second week is a practicum, where participants are encouraged to find instances in the literature where researchers have failed to use this strategy and participants are shown how to use the strategy in their own work.
Selected participants will be highly encouraged to present their own on-going work.