Discuss Empirical Methods-Business Finance – Economics
Referee report (peer review) guidelines:
1. Statement and motivation of problem: is it interesting? a. Did the authors motivate the question? b. What appears to be the main point/thesis of the essay? Where is the thesis, and is
it stated in such a way that you can tell clearly what the writer’s big idea is?
2. Review of previous literature
3. Formulation of a model: predicted relationships a. Are the predicted relationships clearly presented? Is there evidence to support
this relationship?
b. Would a different model have been more appropriate? i. Omitted variable bias (should they have controlled for more things?)
4. Data sources and description: where did the authors obtain data and what measures are they using?
a. Is the data appropriate for answering the question? i. Does the unit of observation make sense?
ii. Are there better ways to measure the variables of interest? b. Sample size: is it sufficient? Are there ways to increase the sample size? c. Is it clear how the variables are measured? d. Was qualitative data correctly transformed into dummy variables? e. Should any of the quantitative data be transformed into dummy variables? f. Was summary statistics for this data (mean, variance, etc) provided?
5. Model estimation and hypothesis testing: reporting of methods used and why they are appropriate
a. Is this analysis valid? Are the OLS assumptions met? i. If there were problems, were they addressed?
ii. Are the standard errors robust? Did the author test for heteroskedasticity? If detected, were steps taken to correct it?
b. Are there other hypothesis tests you would have performed? i. One sided t test
ii. F test of joint significance c. Would you like to see different versions of the model tested and compared?
6. Interpretation of the results a. How are the results presented? b. If dummy variables were used, is the interpretation correct? Would you have
omitted a different category?
c. Was the interpretation of the results correct? d. Are the results causal or merely correlations?
7. Conclusion: limitations of analysis and/or ideas for future analysis
ECN 331 – Empirical Methods
Peer review assignment
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8. Are the paragraphs organized in a logical fashion? Do you lose track of the organization of ideas at any time? Where and how?
9. Does the writing itself seem unclear, vague, too sparse, too wordy, too pompous? Grammar, spelling, or punctuation problems?
