ECN 410

Research Project Details

Due Date: Final Day of Course - Tuesday 12/17 (or anytime before) by 11:59PM.

The research project will consist of aten-page (double-spaced) paper discussing a topic of your choice. The topic could be related to course material or could discuss another international trade/finance topic. The paper should follow the basic structure:

I. The paper should start with a short introduction/motivation section. Why should anyone care about your topic? Here talk about specifics, current events, politics, etc. (~1.5 pgs). Be sure to   establish a clear thesis (argument/focus) and lay out preliminary support you will reference throughout the next section.

- Use sources from reputable publications here (NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, etc)

II. Next, you are expected to review the major contributions on the topic and the current state of the literature, citing at minimum five sources scholarly sources. This should be the bulk of your paper (~6-8 pgs). It is a literature review of your topic. If you have a specific topic (e.g. a specific trade deal, etc) then be sure to generalize your topic for this section. So if you were discussing NAFTA or Brexit, you would want to discuss recent literature on free trade agreements/areas for the literature review. Here you want to discuss general theories on your topic so that you can establish the necessary economic relationships.

- Use scholarly sources here (Journal Articles, Federal Reserve, IMF or NBER Studies, etc)

III. Extension. You just reviewed the literature on a specific subject. Here you should suggest an extension to the current literature (~.5-1 pgs). What is missing from the literature you reviewed (could be a new data set, case study, research methodology)?

IV. Conclusion. Wrap it up. Tie together the support presented above to callback to main thesis (~ .5 pg).

V. Reference Section that links to in-text citations. Use any citation format you choose (APA, MLA, etc), just be consistent throughout the paper. If you choose to, you can simply footnote  within the text and forego this section.