Economic Analysis of Social

Security Systems

Fall semester, 2023

October 19 (5/13)
Schedule of the Course
• Thrusday 13:15-15:00

• September 15 (Lect.01) Introduction & Social Insurance

• 22 (Lect.02) Social Insurance and Social Security
• October 5 (Lect.03) Social Security
• October 12 (Lect.04)
• 19 (Lect.05) How to find a good topic for your thesis
• 26(Lect.06) Unemployment Insurance & Wrokers' Compensation
• November 2 (Lect.07)
• 9 (Lect.08) Health Insurance
• 23 (Lect.09)
• 30 (Lect.10) Income Distribution and Welfare Programs
• December 7(Lect.11)
• 14 (Lect.12) Presentation (1)
• 21 (Lect.13) Presentation (2)
Tips for writing an empirical academic paper
Disclaimers
• This slide is base on my own research experiences as an
author of several empirical papers.

• I focus on lessons for applied empirical economic research.

• I focus on the potential contributions for audiences who are

attempting to write an academic paper for the first time.

• I draw lessons from a large number of resources on writing

in economics, though many ideas are not fully cited.

4
Good topics/research questions
• Work on what interests you.

It is not possible to make things that you think boring be

interesting to others.

Do not work on the topic just because many other people

have written papers on it.

• Work on what you believe is likely to be interested by the

potential readers of your paper.

People do not care about your research. You have only a

few minutes to change their mind.

• Work on what you think you can lead some convincing

answers/stories within a limited time that you are given.

5
Good topics/research questions (cont.)
• What makes a topic interesting?

Some combination of the following attributes makes

the topic something worth looking at.

 The topic matters: When X changes, many people are

worse/better off, or sizable subpopulations are far
worse/better off.

 The topic (or the research question) is controversial or

puzzling.

 The topic is related to something very common (like

traffic jams) or very large (like consumption in GDP).
6
Good topics/research questions (cont.)
• A useful exercise

If you have a topic in your mind, think about it.

If not, think about a good paper you have read.

 State the research question as a yes/no question.

eg. Does graduate education leads to increased
income?

 Establish how the question is important.

- Are many people worse off or better off?
- Does the subject involve large resources?
- Does the question help resolve some important theoretical puzzles?
- Does the topic involve common situations? etc.

7
Good topics/research questions (cont.)
• Good research questions are often found in real world.

 Learn what things the general public finds important

about your topic. Follow the news in TV, radio,
newspapers, and the internet related to your topic.

 Learn what business people, government officials, etc.

want to know about your topic. Talk to non-
economists about your topic.

 Learn the institutional details of your research topic.

 You can also look for ideas in your own life.

8
Good topics/research questions (cont.)
• Good questions are informed by the economics
literature.

 Learn what questions have been asked and what

questions have not been answered in the literature
on your topic.

 Read abstracts and introductions from scholarly

literature. Look for gaps in knowledge.

 Identify a good survey article related to your

broad interests.

Good outlets for this purpose include, but not limited to,
the Journal of Economic Literature, the Journal of Economic
Perspective, and the Journal of Economic Surveys.
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Good topics/research questions (cont.)
• Extending an important paper can produce a good
research question.

 Go to your library's electronic journals and search for

papers broadly related to your interests.

 Look for a paper published in journals that can be

replicated and extended in some interesting way ... to
new countries, to different time periods.

Paper replication is also highly beneficial for you to

understand the construction of the academic paper.

 Are there interesting aspects of the research question

that are incompletely or imperfectly answered?

 If you are extending existing papers, make sure your

extension says something new.
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Good topics/research questions (cont.)
• Remember your comparative advantage

 Do you know more about an interesting topic than

nearly all other economists?

Authors from developing nations typically know the detailed

institutions of their own country.

It may be possible for you to make the case that your country is
more relevant to test the validity of a certain economic hypothesis.

 Do you have relationships that allow you to access

unique data?

 Do you have access to policy makers that might be

open to experimentation, like a randomized controlled
trial?
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Good topics/research questions (cont.)
• We are attempting to learn about the real world.

Unless you are a pure mathematical theorist or a pure

econometrician, avoid defining your contribution by
technique, model, or methodology.

Many poorly written papers typically are defined by

assumption or method, and do not offer new insights.

The following are examples of poor questions:

- What happens if I apply a new econometric method to
estimate the relationship between A and B.
- What happens if I change an assumption in the famous
Model X?

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Organization of the paper
• Figure out the one central contribution of your paper.
Write the contribution down concretely in one paragraph.

• Distilling your one central contribution will take some

thought, and it will cause some pain. However, once you
do it, you can help readers to get the contribution quickly.

• Your readers are busy and impatient. No reader will ever

read the whole paper from start to finish.

Readers skim. You have to make it easy for them to skim.

• Most readers want to know your basic results. They do

not care the details.
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 Organization of the paper
• Organize the paper in "triangular" or "newspaper"
style, not in "joke" or "novel" style.

Newspapers start with the most important part,

then fill in background later for the readers who
kept going and want more details.
A good joke or a mystery novel has
a long windup to the final
punchline. Do not write an Most newsworthy info

academic paper like that.

Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?

Important details
Put the punchline right up front
and then slowly explain the joke. Other general info

A good paper is not a travelogue

Backgournd info

of your search process.

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Organization of the paper
• Empirical papers in economics typically has a
following structure.

 Introduction/Motivations
 Literature review
 Data section
 Empirical strategy
 Empirical findings/results
 Discussion
 Conclusions

In today's lecture, I will talk only about the

introduction, literature review, and conclusion parts,
and hand over the main parts, from the literature
review to discussion, to another opportunity.
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The introduction section
• The introduction is the most important section of a
written academic paper.

The introduction is often the only section of a paper

that people actually read.

If they are not excited by reading the introduction,

the paper has a very low chance of being read
thoroughly, or being highly appreciated.

The introduction should start with what you do in

your paper, the major contribution.

Write them clearly and concisely.

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The introduction section (cont.)
• The introduction should be edited or rewritten
many, many, many times.

It should be written first, rewritten or edited every time

you write other section, and redrafted before you finish
final proofreading.

• Imitate good writers for style. Do so closely until

you are naturally good at writing introductions.

If you use others' words directly, it is plagiarism. It is not

plagiarism to imitate other's paragraph structure,
organization, etc.

17
The introduction section (cont.)
• "The Introduction Formula", a formula for writing
introductions, by Keith Head (University of British Columbia).

 First, attract the reader's interest by telling them that this

paper relates to something interesting.

What makes your topic interesting?

Some combination of the following attributes makes Y

something worth looking at.

Y matters: When Y rises or falls, people are hurt or helped.

Y is puzzling: it defies easy explanation.
Y is controversial: some argue one thing while other say another.
Y is big (like the service sector) or common (like traffic jams).

18
Introduction Formula (cont.)
• Second, tell the reader what this paper actually does.

The reader should have an idea of a clean research

question that will have a more or less satisfactory
answer by the end of the paper.

The question may take two paragraphs. At the end of

the first (2nd paragraph of the paper) or possibly
beginning of the second (3rd paragraph overall) you
should have the “This paper addresses the question”
sentence.
19
Introduction Formula (cont.)
• Third, Identify the prior work that is critical for
understanding the contribution this paper will
make.

The key mistake to avoid here are discussing

papers that are not essential parts of the
intellectual narrative leading up to your own paper.

Give credit where due but establish, in a non-

insulting way, that the prior work is incomplete or
otherwise deficient in some important way.
20
Introduction Formula (cont.)
• Fourth, describe approximately 3 contributions this paper
will make relative to the antecedents, or prior studies that
have gone before it.

What is novel, and why is this new material important.

This paragraph might be the most important one for

convincing referees not to reject your paper.

A big difference between it and the earlier “question”

paragraph is that the contributions should make sense only
in light of prior work whereas the basic research question
of the paper should be understandable simply in terms of
knowing the topic.
21
Introduction Formula (cont.)
 Fifth, tell what exactly does your paper do?

Summarize key research strategies (and key data).

If a reader would anticipate an obvious problem
with your approach, signal how you address the
problem.

 Sixth, report the results.

What do you find.

If possible, restate how the findings are novel and

important, perhaps signaling implications for
policy or the real world.

22
Introduction Formula (cont.)
 Seventh, Outline the organization of the remainder of the
paper. Be specific enough, though, to avoid an outline
that could go in any paper.

Outline the organization of the remainder of the paper.

Be specific enough, though, to avoid writing an outline so

generic that it could apply to any paper (“the next section
is the middle of the paper and then we have the end”).

Instead customize the road map to the project and

possibly mention pivotal “landmarks” (problems, solutions,
results…) that will be seen along the way. But keep this
short because many readers will now be eager to get to
the heart of the paper.

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Tips for the introduction section
• Two to three pages is a good upper limit for the
introduction.

• The introduction formula is a great place to start for

applied economic research.

Until you become very good at writing papers, I

recommend you to start with the formula.

Then ask, what does this formula miss for your paper.

What do I need to add? What do I need to subtract?

Will reorganizing any key points make tell the

economic "story" more clearly?

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Tips for the introduction section (cont.)
• Common introduction problems:

 Promising too much, or "bait and switch."

 Waiting too long to state the question.

<= State the question clearly no later than the 3rd para.

 Burying the question.

<= Do not be subtle. Say "This paper explores..."

 Not articulating a contribution.

<= Do not make it difficult to understand what is new.

25
The introduction section (cont.)
The introduction is not just important because
of the "first impressions" idea that it will tilt
the readers for or against you.

It is also vital to making sure you know

yourself what you are doing in your paper and
why.

If you cannot write a good introduction, then

you may be writing a wrong paper.

26
Literature Review Section
Don’t enumerate, tell the story for readers to understand
the contribution of your study.

• I am sure you have done a lot of study in preparing

your own paper. You probably read a lot of earlier
studies. So I understand your desire to show readers
that you have studied a lot and become smarter.

• However, literature review section of your paper is not

the place to showcase all papers that you read.

Please be aware that the literature review section is

written to help the reader correctly understand the
position and significance of your
27
Literature Review Section (cont.)
• A literature review that merely enumerates other authors’
findings will only bore the reader and is not effective.

• It is better to narrow the number of the earlier studies to

include in your literature review to those that are, to some
extent, essential to understanding the contribution of your
own paper.

• Introduce earlier studies that addressed issues relevant to your

research question. If you are introducing multiple earlier
studies, please describe whether common or conflicting
conclusions have been reached among the studies.

(In cases where multiple studies have produced conflicting results, it

would be helpful to mention possible factors are that led to such
results.)
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Literature Review Section (cont.)
• The bottom line of a literature review is to give readers
an accurate understanding of the current state of
knowledge of what prior research has and has not
revealed about your research questions.

• By presenting earlier studies in such a reconstructed

form, readers will be able to recognize the existence of
research gaps (unresolved issues) and will naturally
understand the contribution and significance of your
paper.

• Hopefully, tells the story of how a succession of

researchers brought us progressively closer and closer to
the resolution of an important question; on more step,
your papers, and the question is completely solved.
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Main body of the paper (omitted in this lecture today)

• Data section
Describe the dataset to be used in the empirical analysis of your paper.
Present some descriptive statistics to show that the data set used contains
no shortage of information necessary to investigate your research questions.

• Empirical strategy
Argue that if the analyses are conducted according to that empirical strategy, it
is possible to find answers to the research questions of the paper.

• Empirical findings/results

• Interpretation/Implication and Further discussion

30
The conclusions section
It probably sounds surprising for those who are trying to
write a paper for the first time, a conclusions section
should not be necessary.

As you have already explained your contribution in

understandable prose in the introduction, as well as in
abstract, and then documented those claims in the body
of the paper, repeating them all over again is pointless.

However, as it is too radical to omit the conclusions

section, conclusions should be short and sweet.

31
The conclusions section (cont.)
A conclusions section should be structured as follows:

1. Summary

When you write a research paper, you need to tell

readers what you are going to tell them (in intro.), tell
then what you want to tell them (in body), and tell them
what you just told them (in conclusions).

Though this part is obviously tedious, it needs to be

there. So, the summary part of the conclusions section
needs to be different enough from the abstract and the
introduction.

I am not saying to say something new; it just needs to be

different enough. If possible, tell a story.
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The conclusions section (cont.)
2. Limitations
The conclusion needs to mention the limitations of
your approach.
3. Implications for policy
Presumably, your paper has some implications for
how policy is made in the real world. Discuss what
those implications are.
Assess the cost of what you propose in comparison
to its benefits. Also discuss how easy or hard it
would be to implement?
However, you should not make claims that are not
supported by your results.
33
The conclusions section (cont.)
4. Implications for future research

If you are writing a follow-up paper, this is a good place

to set the stage for it.

Your theoretical contribution could be generalized, your

empirical contribution could probably benefit from
better causal identification for better internal validity.

(*) It likely not to be a good idea to look for research ideas in the
conclusions of the paper you read. Because conclusions
typically list either i) ideas that are so difficult to execute that
the authors of the papers you're reading didn't think it was
worth exploring them, or ii) ideas that those same authors are
already working on.

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Some useful tips about writing style
Economists have a certain writing style that can be
picked up easily. You should learn the style if you
want to be taken seriously by other economists.

 Favor the present tense

 Favor the active tense

 Use "I" to talk about what you did, and use "we" to
talk about something that everyone could be
expected to appreciate.

 Use cut-and-dried phrases like "the results

show ...," "the estimated coefficient on ...," anyway
or use something equally clear.
35
Some useful tips about writing style (cont.)

 If in doubt about whether to include some non-

economics content, leave it out. Beginners tend to
include too much, rather than too little, political and
social commentary.

 Keep sentences short.

 Repetition is boring. Cut, cut, and then cut again.

 Positive statements are more persuasive than

normative statements.

 Avoid jargon. Any word you don't read regularly in a

newspaper is suspect.
36
Some useful tips about writing style (cont.)

 Never makeup your own acronyms.

 Avoid unnecessary words.

eg. in order to => to, whether or not => whether
is equal to => equals

 Keep your writing self-contained.

Frequent references to other works, or to things
that have come before or will come later, can be
distracting.

 Put details and digressions in footnotes.

37
 Some useful tips about writing style (cont.)

 Keep if simple. Think of your readers as being your

college roommate who majored in Japanese literature.

 Clarity is the first priority in economics writing.

 If you have trouble writing grammatically, please leave

yourself some extra time and go to a writing tutor.

In sum, it is important that your paper in the future

demonstrates that you are more knowledgeable, analytic,
and sophisticated about the economics than we would
expect a clever non-economist writer in a certain
journalistic media to be.

38
 David Romer's Rules for Making It Through Graduate
School and Finishing Your Dissertation
 Don't clutter up your life with other activities; just
write.

 Don't carry out a through and comprehensive search

of the literature; just write.

 Don't attempt to make sure that every page you write

shows the full extent of your professional skills; just
write.

 Don't write a well-organized, well-integrated, unified

dissertation; just write.

 Don't think profound thoughts that shake the

intellectual foundations of the discipline; just write.
39
 David Romer's Rules for Making It Through Graduate
School and Finishing Your Dissertation
 If you don't have a paper started by the spring of your third year
(the end of your first year in case of master thesis), be alarmed.

 If you don't have a paper largely drafted by the fall of your

fourth year (5 months before the date of your submission),
panic.

 Have three new ideas a week while you are getting started.

 Don't try to game the profession, work on what interests you.

 Good paper in economics have three characteristics: A

viewpoint, A lever, and A result.

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Online resources for finding economics literature

• IDEAS(https://ideas.repec.org/)
IDEAS is the largest bibliographic database dedicated to
Economics and available freely on the Internet. Based on
RePEc, it indexes over 3,700,000 items of research, including
over 3,400,000 that can be downloaded in full text.

• JSTOR(https://www.jstor.org/action/showBasicSearch)
JSTOR is a digital library for the intellectually curious. We
provide a platform for discovering and connecting research,
images, and primary sources. JSTOR currently offers more
than 12 million academic journal articles, 85,000 books, and
2 million primary source documents in 75 disciplines.

41
Suggested Organization for your PowerPoint
presentation slides

• Introduction (Motivations) 1-2 slides

• Research Questions 1 slides
• Institutional Background 1-2 slides
• Empirical Strategy
Data, Methodology 2-4 slides (1-2 each)
• (Expected) Results 1-2 slides
• (Possible) Implications 1-2 slides

Maximum length is 12 pages. The presentation should be

prepared for approximately one minute for each slide.
42