Elementary Econometrics Project

1 Basic Description
Objective:

The purpose of this class is to apply the analytical and quantitative skills which should be acquired in this course. The final project should be a professional looking manuscript with easily interpreted graphics and charts.

Description:
The project requires using statistical techniques learned in this course to analyze data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The specific topic that you ex- amine is up to you.

Formatting:
All aspects of your final paper must be typed. The paper should be double spaced with font of at least 11 point. There is no minimum number of pages. There is a strict maximum of 10 pages including title page, tables, graphs, and appendices. Anything beyond 10 pages will not be graded. The paper should include the following sections: introduction, data, empirical methodology, results, and conclusions.

Data:
You will use the data set nlsy97small.dta. The data is a subsample of the 1997 NLSY. The data set is funded by the BLS. They describe the data as follows: The NLSY97 consists of a nationally representative sample of approximately 9,000 youths who were 12 to 16 years old as of December 31, 1996. Round 1 of the survey took place in 1997. In that round, both the eligible youth and one of that youth’s parents received hour-long personal interviews. In addition, during the screening process, an extensive two-part questionnaire was administered that listed and gathered demo- graphic information on members of the youth’s household and on his or her immediate family members living elsewhere. Youths are interviewed on an annual basis.
The subset of data that you are given contains only 1199 observations, so that it can be analyzed with small STATA. To avoid the complexity of working with panel data, the time aspect is taken out. There are literally thousands of data points available, but I have narrowed it to the variables shown in table 1.

2 Variable definitions

Table 1: Variable Definitions

Many of the variables are categorical. Simply type ”tab variable” and stata will display how many observations belong to each category and what those categories indicate.

3 Commonly missed Points
Grammar Do not simply write your paper in another language and use google trans- late to change it to English. Those papers are nearly impossible to read. Reading the paper out loud to yourself before you hand it in will help tremendously.
Following Directions Include everything that is on the attached grading rubric and in the correct section.
Potential Problems with your regression All methodologies have some potential problems. When you address those problems in the methodology section do not include problems that you can fix with your current skills and data, specifically discuss which coefficients could be affected and the direction of the affect.
Equation The equation that is written out in the empirical methodology section must be the same equation used to generate the tables. If the equation has perfect multi- collinearity or treats categorical variables as continuous, there will be large deductions. Tables and graphs checklist Missing any part of the checklist will result in significant deductions.
Tables and graphs must be understandable without reading the text. This means there should be a clear title that explains the contents of the table, such as ”Summary Statistics”.
Do not use variable names in tables and figures. For example, rather than momedu my table should say ”Mother’s Education”.
There should also be a footnote which adds some detail to the and explains what is shown. For example ”Each entry is an OLS coefficient with standard errors in parentheses. Stars represent p-values as ...”
• If plotting distribution in a figure, use percent as the y-axis.
• All figures and tables should be referenced in the text.
• Figures must show more than just means.

Elementary Econometrics Project 1 Basic Description Objective:...