ECON2206: Introductory Econometrics (Sem2, 2014)

Project (Due WEEK 12)

Dr. Rachida Ouysee, Dr. Nektarios Aslanidis

Title The Cobb-Douglas production function

Submission procedure
-

You must submit one hard copy of the assignment

Make sure that your names, student numbers, course title, tutorial group
numbers and tutors' name are included in the submission
Do not use plastic sheets or binders. Simply staple the pages together
More details about the assignment can be found in the course outline

Students shall work together on the project and teams of up to a maximum of 4

students shall submit a joint project. Every week, you will be given some guidance
relating the work on the project to the lecture material. You should NOT think of the
project as a tutorial assignment where you answer a set of detailed questions. Think
about how you can apply what you have learned in your current and past econometric
classes (and other classes) to address this question with the data set.
The paper should be around 6-8 pages of text and around 2 pages of tables. You should
use 12 pt fonts and normal margins. In tables, it is acceptable to use smaller fonts but
you should not use anything smaller than 10 pts. As a guide you could think of
including the following sections:

(2 marks) Introduction + literature review: 1 page

(1 mark) Data: page
Describe your variables, the number of observations, the main problems you had
manipulating the data and the decisions you made.
(3 marks) Model: 1 page
You should describe very briefly a theoretical model in order to motivate your choice of
variables and to help with the interpretation of the results. Then describe the
econometric model(s) in some detail.
(4 marks) Results and interpretation: 2-3 pages
This is likely to be the main section in your paper. Describe your econometric model(s)
and your results. Interpret the results. Discuss likely problems with the model and
possible violations of your main assumptions.
(4 marks) Diagnostics and Sensitivity analysis: 1-2 pages
This is also a crucial part of your paper, you want to convince the reader that your
results are real and not just an artifice of the particular model you are using. Run
diagnostic tests, change some of the decisions you made in manipulating the data and
rerun the models.
(2 marks) Conclusions: 1/2 page
Restate your main results and say how you would expand the paper if you had more
time, more data, etc.
(1 mark) References: 1/4 page
Reference your textbooks (if you used them) and any article you have read and used as a
basis for your discussions and decisions.

I remind you that the University regards plagiarism as a form of academic misconduct,
and has very strict rules regarding plagiarism.
For UNSWs policies, penalties, and information to help you avoid plagiarism see:
http://www.lc.unsw.edu.au/plagiarism/index.html as well as the guidelines in the
online ELISE tutorial for all new UNSW students:
http://info.library.unsw.edu.au/skills/tutorials/InfoSkills/index.htm.
If you have any doubts or questions on what constitutes plagiarism and how it will be
treated, please ask me or your tutors. An easy rule to follow: if you copy and use a
whole sentence word for word from another source, cite the source.

Good luck!