Criteria of a good Job Market Paper

I accidentally came across Andrew C. Johnston’s blog citing Steve Levitt’s 10 elements of a good economics job market paper.

I copy the list here for my own reference:

1. An Important Question: it should be a relevant economic question, inform public policy, involve a lot of money, be generalizable, or respond to what other economists are working on and find interesting. The more of those qualities the better.

2. Surprising or Prior Moving: You shouldn’t know the answer ahead of time: either it should be something that contradicts and moves priors or something about which there is no obvious answer. Otherwise it’s boring.

3. Connection to Economic Theory: relate the question to theory, even if it’s retroactively. Explain different economic theories for the question and what they predict.

4. Convincing Empirical Work: The source of causal identification should be compelling. Levitt suggests having supplementary hypotheses, meaning several hypotheses that are tested, some passing and others rejected. Include robustness checks. Random variation is always a boon. Does your empirical result pass the sniff test. People are skeptical when your styalized facts come from handled data. Let the raw data speak for itself. Moreover, have a measure of transparency—be honest about the shortcomings and problems of the paper; otherwise you are daring the reader to prove you wrong. Have a collage of evidence, a collection of things supporting your argument; think of it as a court case.

5. Not Zero: the result should not be zero. If you expect the answer to be zero, it’s probably not a good question to begin with.

6. Well Written and Well Argued.

7. An Idea: The paper needs to have an idea—not just data, mechanics, and a result. If it’s a new idea, it’s really refreshing; people crave a new idea.

8. Technically Dazzling, Complicated: Show off lots of relevant technical skills. Don’t stuff in a technical trick if it doesn’t fit the question and data. Departments will often look at the other papers you have in the pipeline during your interview to see a fuller picture of your technical ability.

9. Get The Right Answer: you want to get the answer that’s going to stick, not a flash in the pan. Find something that has some staying power.

10. The Paper is Interesting: It should have an interesting vibe. There are important economic questions that aren’t interesting, highway economics, for instance.

Written by Luong Kim Long based in Vietnam, writing about finance, photography and music. You should follow him on Facebook