For your second paper analysis, I ask that you read “Does Pollution Increase School Absences?” by Currie et al. (2009). Please summarize this paper
. I have provided a template that I would like you to use. Please update the template per the instructions below.
For this paper, we are focusing on
what data analysis looks like in economics. Through the sections, you should be analyzing the following questions:
1. What is the research question?
2. What data sources are used?
1. You will need to list
each data source.
2. You want to think about this as if you were going to replicate this study. What information would you need? List that for
each data source. Things like years covered, the agency collecting the data, etc. might be important.
3. Why are each of these data sources used? Why do the authors need this data to answer this question?
4. What drawbacks exist with this data? How do the authors attempt to overcome this?
5. What methods do the authors use to analyze the data?
6. Overall, what is your assessment of the paper?
Note:
your goal is not to directly address these questions. Meaning, I don’t want you to literally write “What is the research question? Well…” in your analysis. Instead, after reading your analysis, I should feel like these questions have been answered.
For this paper, I want you to include the following sections:
Section 1: Summary
Summarize the paper, including the main findings. This will focus on questions 1 and 6 above.
Section 2: Data
Summarize the data used in the paper. This will focus on questions 2, 3, and 4 above.
Section 3: Methods
Summarize the methods used to answer the question.
Be as specific as possible. It might even help to include and explain the primary estimating equation…
Section 4: Analysis
This is your analysis. This will focus on question 6 above. Here, I really want you to be thinking about your assessment of
how the question is answered, not necessarily whether you like the paper. Is the data relevant? Would you prefer something else to be used? Are the methods convincing? How could you adapt them, or how could you improve them? Etc.
