ECONOMETRICS SPRING 2024

2020
PROJECT GUIDELINE

Table of Contents
1 – OVERVIEW .................................................................................................................................................. 2
2 – TOPIC SUGGESTIONS ............................................................................................................................... 3
3 – PROJECT’S WRITTEN REPORT ............................................................................................................... 3
3.1 – REPORT STRUCTURE TYPE 1 (FOR ECONOMETRICS): .......................................................................................... 4
3.2 – REPORT STRUCTURE TYPE 2 (FOR STATISTICS) .................................................................................................... 5
3.3 – PLAGIARISM ISSUE ...................................................................................................................................................... 6
4 – PROJECT PRESENTATION ....................................................................................................................... 6
5 – ASSESSMENT CRITERIA .......................................................................................................................... 6
ANNEX 1 – SUGGESTION ON DATASETS AND DATA RESOURCES (FOR SECONDARY DATA): ........ 7
Datasets .................................................................................................................................................................................. 7
Data Resources: ...................................................................................................................................................................... 8

Hanoi University FMT 1 Econometrics Spring 2020

1 – OVERVIEW
A term project is required in this course. The term project will introduce you to applied research and the use of
econometrics. You are required to develop a topic and collect the necessary data for econometric analysis. You
need to begin early and, preferably, find a topic of interest to you.
Group& Deadline

The project will be done in teams of maximum four individuals. You will be assigned into divided groups. Please
check your group list. The project is due on Friday, last tutorial's week. 10 points will be deducted for each
day of late submission.

The following outline provides guidance for the project and establishes a set of deadlines.
1. Your first task is to meet your team members and write a paragraph or two introducing the topic your team
chose. You need to complete this by the end of Week 6.

2. Your second task is to write 2-3 pages on the "problem" or research question you will address in your paper.
You must:
(a) Identify and review some basic economic theory about the relationship you will estimate;
(b) Identify the dependent variable of the relationship (theory helps with this);
(c) Identify independent variables (you should identify several); and
(d) Cite references and data sources in proper bibliographic form.
This first task is one of the toughest (it is always hard to start) but should constitute an introduction with a brief
review of the appropriate economic theory.
This task will be your first consultation with your tutor and should be done before Week 7. Come prepared to
discuss the following sections:
 Introduction: present the "problem" you are addressing.
 Model Specification: present a conceptual model that follows your problem statement. In this section,
you must draw on economic theory. What is the appropriate theory? What are the variables in the
model and how are they related? Discuss the importance of each variable and draw Some graphs to
support your arguments, use your Microeconomic or Macroeconomic theory texts. what are the expected
signs for the parameters in the assumed model you have specified (again according to theory)? (Note:
these are your hypotheses.)
3. The third installment of your project should be done before Week 8 and will be a significant expansion/
improvement of the second installment. It will include your second installment, with corrections and will include
presentation and description of your data set. You need to provide data tables and graphics to present a picture of
your data. Excel graphics are requisite.
You should type this paper and hand in to your tutor. The following outline should be followed:
 Introduction: This should be similar to your first installmentt but will include corrections that your tutor
suggested on your first draft. The Introduction should be about one page in length.

Hanoi University FMT 2 Econometrics Spring 2020

  Model Specification: This should also be similar to your first installment and will include your tutor
suggested corrections. In this section, you must draw on economic theory. What is the appropriate
theory? What are the variables in the model and how are they related? Discuss the importance of each
variable and draw some graphs to support your arguments; use your Microeconomic or Macroeconomic
theory texts. What are the "expected" signs for the parameters in the assumed model you have specified
(again according to theory)? (Note: these are your hypotheses.)
 Data: define each of the variables that will be used in your econometric model. Give a complete set of
data sources that you used to collect the data in proper bibliographic form. Also, discuss briefly the
sample that you used. Was it a time-series? If so for what years were data collected? You must also
organize and present your data. Make use of the tools we have applied in Statistics course. Create
grouped data tables, present graphs, calculate descriptive statistics and list your descriptive statistics
(means, standard deviations) for all variables in a table.
These first tasks with which you are faced are probably the more difficult and time-consuming portions of the
project. Do not allow yourself to become lost in the data collection process.

4. The remainder of the project involves estimating the model using EViewss. You will then interpret your
results and write a section of your paper describing your results and hypothesis tests.

2 – TOPIC SUGGESTIONS
You could conduct your own survey. You might have very successful projects in this semester, if you can develop
a ssurvey instrument and collect your own data.
Some topics are allocation of time and effects on student GPA; expenditures on textbooks on campus (you would
need a wide range of students to test for differences across majors, Courses, etc.); house rents and location in
Hanoi, whether technology improves FMT students learning you can probably think of other pressing questions.
Environmental/ Natural Resource Economics
What is the relationship between economic growth and a country's endowment of natural resources? Do countries
with large endowments of natural resources grow more slowly?
Returns to Human Capital:
One important argument for investing in education is that such investments pay handsome dividends. Are college
degrees more valuable than high school degrees? Is graduate school a worthy investment? Develop empirical
evidence on this topic.
Experience is an alternative form of human capital. Does experience also provide dividends to the worker? Does
experience suffer diminishing marginal returns?
Other:
A number of Macroeconomic topics are possible: real interest rates, consumption functions, different theories of
investment behavior and estimation of the Phillips Curve.
3 – PROJECT’S WRITTEN REPORT
These are two kinds of report writing structures. You can write the report in either structure.
Word limit: 4,000 words

Hanoi University FMT 3 Econometrics Spring 2020

3.1 – REPORT STRUCTURE TYPE 1 (FOR ECONOMETRICS):
Front materials: The front materials typically include the following items:
 Title page
 Acknowledgements
 Table of contents
 Table of appendices
 List of tables
 List of figures
 Work allocation
 Work contribution (%)*
*This is self-assessment within your team. The final Project Assignment result might not be equal among
team members because of the contribution weight. If a member fulfills his/her allocated tasks, (s)he will
get 100% in contribution. If not, the contribution weight is lower (70%, 80%...).

Introduction: Present the "problem" you are addressing. This should be similar to your first installment but will
include corrections suggested for your first draft. The Introduction should be at least one page in length.

Model Specification: Present a conceptual model that follows your problem statement. In this section, you must
draw on economic theory. What is the appropriate theory? What are the variables in the model and how are they
related? Discuss the importance of each variable and draw some graphs to support your arguments; use your
Microeconomic or Macroeconomic theory texts. What are the “expected” signs for the parameters in the assumed
model you have specified (again according to theory) (Note: these are your hypotheses)

Data: Define each of the variables that will be used in your econometric model. (Provide a complete set of data on
diskette.) Identify all sources that you used to ccollect the data in proper bibliographic form. Also, discuss briefly
the sample that you used. Was it a time-series? If so for what years were data collected: You must also provide
graphic presentations of the data including bar graphs, charts and tables listing descriptive statistics (means,
standard deviations) for all variables.

Results: Iidentify the estimation process, you will all be using OLS, and present the results. The parameter
estimates must be discussed. What do they mean? Are they consistent with your expectations from theory? Are
the parameter estimates statistically different from zero? Explain in the text why you found that the estimates were
or were not statistically different from zero. How about the model? Does the regression model fit the data well?
Comment. Does the regression model explain a statistically significant portion of the variation in the dependent?
variable? What other models did you try to estimate? Any other results that should be mentioned.
Check the three errors and model specification

Hanoi University FMT 4 Econometrics Spring 2020

Summary and Conclusions: What conclusions do you reach? What are the important results that should be
summarized? This section should be an effective? Summary of your work; It should be able to inform a reader
what you did in a concise manner - like 1-2 pages at most. The final paper must be well written.

3.2 – REPORT STRUCTURE TYPE 2 (FOR STATISTICS)

After conducting a statistical study, a researcher must write a final report explaining how the study was conducted
and giving the results of the study. The format of research reports, theses, and dissertations vary from school to
school; however, they tend to follow the general format explained here.

Front materials: The front materials typically include the following items:
 Title page
 Copyright page
 Acknowledgements
 Table of contents
 Table of appendices
 List of tables
 List of figures
 Work allocation
 Work contribution (%)*
*This is self-assessment within your team. The final Project Assignment result might not be equal among
team members because of the contribution weight. If a member fulfills his/her allocated tasks, (s)he will
get 100% in contribution. If not, the contribution weight is lower (70%, 80%...).

Chapter 1: Nature and background of the study. This chapter should introduce the reader to the nature of the
study and present some discussion on the background of the study. It should contain the following information:
 Introduction
 Statement of the problem
 Background of the problem
 Rationale for the study
 Research questions and/or hypotheses

Chapter 2: Review of literature. This chapter should explain what has been done in previous research related to
the study. It should contain the following information: Prior research Related literature

Chapter 3: Methodology. This chapter should explain how the study was conducted. It should contain the
following information: Development of questionnaires, tests, survey instruments, etc. Definition of the population
Sampling methods used How the data was collected Research design used Statistical tests that will be used to
analyze the data

Hanoi University FMT 5 Econometrics Spring 2020

Chapter 4: Analysis of data. This chapter should explain the results of the statistical analysis of the data. It
should state whether or not the null hypothesis should be rejected. Any statistical tables used to analyze the data
should be included here.

Chapter 5: Summary, conclusions, and recommendations. This chapter summarizes the results of the study
and explains any conclusions that have resulted from the statistical analysis of the data. The researchers should
cite and explain any shortcomings of the study. Recommendations obtained from the study should be included
here, and recommendations for further studies should be suggested.

3.3 – PLAGIARISM ISSUE

All reports must include proper citation and reference, using Havard Style.

4 – PROJECT PRESENTATION
Apart from submiting written report, all groups have to submit a presentation video of their work within ONE week
after submitting the written report.
Format: Group will upload video on Youtube and submit the URL to tutors.
There will be ONE slot for a volunteer group to present their project following by Q&A in the last tutorial session.
This group will earn bonus for their work.

5 – ASSESSMENT CRITERIA
Elements Weight
REPORT: 80%, in which:
1. Model selection and explaination 30%
2. Relidablity of data* 20%
3. Application of Econometrics theory 10%
4. Findings and Implications 10%
5. Academic Writing 10%
PRESENTATION 20%**

*All teams need to submit data file(s), Eviews workfile with their written report.
**This has not include BONUS for the volunteer group. The bonus is capped at 5% of the project.

Hanoi University FMT 6 Econometrics Spring 2020

 ANNEX 1 – SUGGESTION ON DATASETS AND DATA RESOURCES (FOR SECONDARY DATA):
Datasets
You may refer to the list of datasets in Textbook “Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach, 5th Ed”
by Jeffrey M. Wooldridge
The list provides more than 100 data sets. Data sets have all been compressed to a fraction of their original size
and are well documented. Each dataset have the original data Excel file ([name].xls) and description
([name]_description.txt)

The description lists out all variables in the dataset, number of observations, and description of variable
(Example: dataset WAGE1)

Hanoi University FMT 7 Econometrics Spring 2020

You may also refer to the summary document about R package “wooldrige”. It provides detailed description of
111 Data Sets from “Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach, 6e'' by Jeffrey M. Wooldridge. (The
datasets are almost the same as those in 5th Edition)

“Documentation files contain the page numbers of the text where each set is used, the original source, time of
publication, and notes suggesting ideas for further exploratory data analysis and research.”
Most of datasets are not collected in Vietnam. However, some datasets are easy to adapt in Vietnamese context
because of availablitiy of data, such as: wage1, phillips, prminwge, consump, inven,
expendshares, gpa1, sleep75, etc. Thus, students are highly recommended to develop further analysis
from the original datasets and/or to conduct analysis for CASE STUDY IN VIETNAM.
Data Resources:
Below are some data portals for you to collect reliable data for economics/econometrics analysis. Remember to
cross check between different data sources and provide detailed explanation of data collection in your report.
Resource Name Link
General Statistic Office Vietnam https://www.gso.gov.vn/default_en.aspx?tabid=491
Check in official website of the ministry for open
Ministry-level data portal
data
World Bank Open Data https://data.worldbank.org/
https://www.ilo.org/global/statistics-and-
ILO Statistics
databases/lang--en/index.htm
Trading Economics https://tradingeconomics.com/
OECD Stats https://stats.oecd.org/

Hanoi University FMT 8 Econometrics Spring 2020