Research Methods in Economics

Semester and Year Offered:

Course Coordinator and Team:

Email of course coordinator:

Pre-requisites: NA

Course Objectives/Description:

This course aims at providing some basic research criteria to post-graduate students. It lays the foundations for preparing students for academic skills which covers acquiring and reviewing basic analytical skills, choosing a dissertation topic, deriving interesting and well-focused research questions, how to address questions with data or theory and how to interpret and write up results. The structure of the course can be ideally split into two components. The first is specific skills: use of library resources, writing skills, and data collection and management. The second part aims to prepare the student to gain an understanding of the application of these in the context of the development of their own dissertation topic.

Course Outcomes:

On successful completion of this course students will be able to:

1. Develop the capacity to comprehend the different philosophical and ethical issues related to research in Economics.
2. Get a comprehensive understanding of the overall process of research, from designing a research question to evaluating and interpreting results.
3. Get knowledge of the various approaches and techniques to be used for the investigation of different research questions in Economics.
4. Conduct their own research work in Economics.

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

1. Conceptual and Philosophical basis of Research methodology in Economics
2. Library Skills and Resources
3. Analytical frame work and formulation of Research problems
4. Reading and reviewing an article
5. Accessing economic data sources
6. Methodological skills for Generating primary data
7. Data Analysis through SPSS
8. How to write a Synopsis/ Research/Project proposal
9. Referencing
10. How to write a Dissertation/Thesis

Assessment Details with weights:

Assignment (30%), Class test (30%), Research Report (40%)

Assignment 1 will be an article review, where the student has to write a review of an article in 1500 words

The Class Test will be based on material covered during first half of the semester.

For the Research Report the students will have to identify a research question and write a research proposal with details of methods that will be used, data sources etc.

Reading List:

1. Kumar, R. (1999), Research Methodology: a Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners, Sage publication.
2. Chandrasekhar, R (2002) “How to write a thesis: a working guide”, available at http://ciips.ee.uwa.edu.au/pub/HowToWriteAThesis.pdf.
3. 3. William Thomson, (2001), A Guide for the Young Economist: Writing and Speaking Effectively about Economics. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 118 pp.
4. Ethridge, D.E(2004), Research methodology in Applied Economics, Blackwell
5. Koop, G, (2005) , Analysis of Economics Data, Wiley
6. Locke, L. Spirduso, W. Silveman S., (1993), Proposals that Work: A Guide for Planning Dissertation and Grant Proposal, Sage publication
7. Darren, G. ( 2010), SPSS for Windows Step by Step,: Pearson, Noida

ADDITIONAL REFERENCE: