程序辅导案例 > Program >

代写辅导接单-ECON7480

欢迎使用51辅导，51作业君孵化低价透明的学长辅导平台，服务保持优质，平均费用压低50%以上！ 51fudao.top

ECON7480 Research Proposal

Instructions

Summary of task

The goal of this assessment is to write an original and interesting proposal for a research

project related to behavioural economics. You will come up with your own research question

and describe a practical and feasible method for how you would go about answering it. The

word limit is 1,500 words, which excludes the title page, abstract, tables and figures,

references, and any appendixes. This is a hard word limit, and you will be penalised for

exceeding it. Submission will be through Turnitin.

In addition to the detailed instructions below, please note two mandatory components that

must be followed by all students:

1. In the Related Literature section, students are required to reference, in a substantial

way, at least one academic journal article that has been published since 2024.

2. In the Method section, students must include at least one table or figure. This could

be a flow chart of the proposed experimental design or data collection process, or a

table of summary statistics on preliminary data. The table or figure must be labelled

and contain a full caption that provides a self-contained explanation of the table

or figure. (“Self-contained” means that a new reader could jump straight to the table

or figure and its caption, and still understand its meaning.)

We have uploaded some examples of high-scoring research proposals from past students.

Please note that some of these assignments were marked using the legacy marking criteria,

and as such did not include the above additional components.

You are allowed to use AI to assist you in this assessment task. In fact, it is encouraged,

especially for the following tasks:

1. As an initial ‘soundboard’ to get feedback on your research topic ideas

2. As a final ‘proofreader’ for writing and grammatical errors

Getting started

Your first step is to decide your topic, and specifically, your research question. For example,

it could be a proposal to compare mainstream and behavioural theories to a specific policy

problem, or to apply behavioural economics to aid in policy implementation, or the

application of a behavioural economics theory to a novel population or setting (such as a

behavioural ‘nudge’). A good place to start looking for ideas is to search the news for current

policy issues, in Australia or abroad. Typically (but not always), a good question can be

rewritten in the form “Does X cause Y?”, where X and Y are some characteristics or

outcomes of interest. Table 1 gives a summary of such rephrasing of the questions in some of

the papers discussed in this course.

There is quite some flexibility with the format of your proposal, and you should not feel

constrained by the guidelines below if you think you can do it better with your particular

topic. These guidelines are there to help improve the quality of your proposal, but if you can

write a high-quality paper in another way, you will not be penalised for unorthodoxy.

Likewise, feel free to include anything in an appendix that is not an appropriate fit in the

main document but that you do refer to in the text, such as specific experiment instructions, a

variable dictionary for an existing dataset, or other background information or material. Most

proposals will not need an appendix, but, seeing as it does not count for your word limit, you

may wish to exploit it for material that is relevant but not critical to your research proposal.

Regardless of your preferred format, however, your structure must include the following

sections:

1. Title page

2. Abstract

3. Introduction

4. Related literature (with mandatory recent journal article reference)

5. Method (with mandatory inclusion of a table or figure)

6. Conclusion

7. References

You may add other sections or subheadings for readability if you wish, but be careful of your

word limit.

Details of each section

1. Title page

Your title page should contain your proposal’s Title, your name and student number, date of

submission, your abstract, and an accurate word count (which excludes the title page,

abstract, tables and figures, references, and any appendixes).

2. Abstract

The abstract (placed on your title page) should be a four-sentence summary of your entire

research proposal, so make sure it includes what you believe are the absolute key ingredients

of your paper. The structure and content are flexible, but a typical format would be:

• First sentence: jump right into the topic or research question. (In some cases, you

might prefer a first sentence of motivation instead.) It would typically start with

something like “This research proposal...” followed by what it is you are proposing to

investigate/answer.

• Second sentence: State what the contribution is of your research proposal. What has

the previous literature proposed or found, and what will your proposal contribute to

fill the gaps in our knowledge? E.g. “While previous literature has found that/assumes

that/predicts that [...], this proposal contributes to our knowledge of this issue by

testing whether [...]”

• Third sentence: This should be about how you plan to answer your question. State

your method (or ‘empirical’ approach). E.g.: “I propose...” followed by the method,

e.g. “I propose to run a lab experiment in which I will test how changing X affects

people’s behaviour towards Y.” If there is a treatment/explanatory variable and an

outcome variable (and there should be!), or details of a specific context or sample that

is being tested, they should be clearly specified.

• Fourth sentence: Add any remaining critical details of the method, and/or include

the bare minimum of your analysis plan: what do you plan to test, how do you plan to

test it (e.g. a t-test between control and treatment groups, or a linear regression on

your data), and what conclusions will you draw depending on these results? E.g. “I

will run a t-test to determine whether there are differences in [Y] between the

treatment and control groups, and if the treatment group’s [Y] is significantly larger,

this would support the hypothesis that [...]”.

3. Introduction

This section should be started on a new page to your title page/abstract, and should be short,

typically 1-3 paragraphs. Provide a motivation for the broad topic and why you think the

reader should be interested in it, including any necessary background, and introduce any

relevant economic theories or concepts (mainstream or behavioural). You may wish to

highlight where there is currently a gap in our knowledge (which your research proposal will

aim to fill). But don’t dwell for too long on setting up the context; make sure your research

question clearly appears by the end of the first paragraph. If different school of academic

thought predict different answers to your research question, you may then want to spend 1-2

sentences outlining these predictions, and/or to briefly introduce which method you are

proposing to use to test these predictions.

In terms of your writing, try to avoid flowery language, embellishments, or ambiguities.

Write clearly and matter-of-factly. Academic papers are often considered ‘dry’ in style,

which can be true; the purpose of an academic paper is not to entertain with the writing, but

to convey the material as clearly as possible; how ‘interesting’ an academic paper is will be

typically judged on the worthiness of the topic and the quality of the research.

Here are some examples of introductions of behavioural economics papers that broadly

follow the structure that is expected of you.

Most children think of their potential future occupations in terms of what they will

be (firemen, doctors, etc.), not merely what they will do for a living. Many adults

also think of their job as an integral part of their identity. At least in the United

States, “What do you do?” has become as common a component of an

introduction as the anachronistic “How do you do?” once was, yet identity, pride,

and meaning are all left out from standard models of labour supply. This omission

is understandable: identity, pride, and meaning are difficult to quantify and are

thus hard to incorporate into the empirically driven field of labour economics.

In this article, we focus on minimal perceived meaning by the labour producing

force and investigate how it influences labour supply in controlled laboratory

experiments. Our intention is to compare situations with no meaning (or as low a

level of meaning as we can create) with situations having some small additional

meaning. Thus, our investigation will focus not on occupations highly endowed

with meaning, like medicine or teaching, but on the least-common denominator of

meaningfulness that is shared by virtually all compensated activities.

– Ariely, Kamenica and Prelec (2008)

Charitable contributions in the United States were estimated to exceed $300

billion annually in 2007, 2008, and 2009. This is roughly $1000 for each person

in the US, a not insignificant amount. Given the reliance of charitable

organizations on these contributions, it is quite important to try to identify and

implement effective methods for enhancing the revenue received. There has been

some recent work on suggested donations to public radio, and some study of the

notion of paying-what-you-want as a pricing device. We extend both of these

notions to fund-raising in a restaurant venue, exploring whether the suggested

amount (if any) mattered with respect to the contributions raised.

Businesses like grocery stores and restaurants often ask customers (typically

through having a donation jar at the check-out register) to donate money to a

certain charity organization. One often sees a suggested certain donation level.

But there has been little by way of systematic and controlled study regarding how

the suggested donation level affects behaviour in this environment. Our research

question is to attempt to determine the optimal amount to suggest, or whether it is

better to make no suggestion.

– Charness and Cheung (2013)

Improving energy efficiency reduces costs for firms and mitigates CO

emissions.

This is particularly important in the transportation sector, which is responsible

for approximately 25%–28% of greenhouse gas emissions in Western

industrialized countries (cf. EEA, 2018, EPA, 2018). Fuel accounts for around

40% of variable costs for transportation companies. We conducted an analysis to

determine if loss aversion helps motivate drivers to drive in a fuel-efficient

manner. If successful, this could reduce fuel consumption by about 22%.

– Hoffman and Thommes (2020)

Nudging has been found to affect human behavior across a wide range of

domains. In particular, it has been used to improve the payment morale of citizens

when they owe money to public institutions. While the traditional view (Allingham

and Sandmo, 1972) considered citizens’ tax compliance as a matter of audits and

harsh fines, it is by now well understood that tax morale is also a very important

factor for compliance (Kirchler, 2007). In fact, nudging has been frequently

applied to improve tax morale, even though with mixed results. In the realm of

taxation, taxpayers are very likely to anticipate, however, that the government will

ultimately enforce correct tax payments, which is why nudges might have a good

chance to work. In other situations, however, public institutions may not want to

enforce the collection of citizens’ payments for social or ethical reasons. Whether

or not nudging also works in such a setting and whether it can have persistent

effects even after abolishing the nudge again are the key questions of this paper.

– Sutter, Rosenberger and Sutter (2020)

4. Related literature

Please make sure that you clearly relate your research question to the existing academic

literature. What are the possible answers to your research question that have been discussed

in past studies? What papers answer a similar question to yours, and what do they find? (For

example, if you are researching “Does moral nudging increase tax compliance in Australia?”,

you would want to cite studies that investigate whether moral nudging increases tax

compliance in other countries, or studies about moral nudging for other behaviours). It is

possible that closely related studies come from fields other than economics, such as

psychology or even more specialised fields (for example, in the previous example, papers

from policy journals might be relevant). But when in doubt, prioritise economics papers.

What you must definitely avoid is proposing a study that has already been carried out. So,

make sure that your literature search is thorough. Google Scholar is the best place to start,

and once you find a close paper, use the “Cited by” feature to filter by recent, related papers.

A common question is “How many papers should I cite?” This is hard to answer other than

the general comment “The most important ones, but no more”. While it is important not to

omit any critical paper, it is equally important not to spread yourself too thin such that you

cite many papers but with insufficient detail for the relevance to be clear to the reader. Here

are some types of examples.

• If your proposal is an extension of one specific paper, then you may justify citing only

this paper, so that you can go into deep detail about this paper and what your

extension contributes to it. For example, you may be adding an original extension to

the design of Niederle and Vesterlund’s (2007) competitiveness experiment.

• If your extension has a very similar design to one study but applies it in a different

domain – for example, you apply the Apesteguia and Palacios-Heurta (2010) paper

about soccer penalty kicks to rugby union – you would want to (at least) cite both this

paper and the most relevant paper about psychological pressure in your new domain

(rugby union).

• If your research proposal tries to reconcile two or more papers that reached

contradictory conclusions, then you would want to describe these papers in detail (and

you may not need to cite more). For example, Albrecht and Smerdon’s (2022) design

references three contradictory theories in its review, and cites the main papers for

each theory.

• If your research proposal covers several topics – for example, you are comparing

whether confirmation bias or the sunk cost fallacy can best explain why people don’t

sell their crypto investments – you may need to cite more papers (in this case, ones on

both biases in general, and also on broad psychological biases in the crypto market).

Many research topics fall into this category.

At the end of this section, you should state in one sentence what the specific contribution of

your research would be to this literature. What is the gap that you are filling in the academic

landscape?

5. Method

This should be the longest section of your proposal, roughly half of your allocated word

count. Typically, the method for your research proposal will be either an experiment (lab or

field) or an empirical study of existing data. Your proposed method must be: (a) able to

answer your research question, (b) practical, and (c) ethical. Table 1 gives examples of the

methods used in some of the papers discussed in this course.

If you choose an experiment, your proposal must include the following details:

• The experimental design, including the type and number of subjects, the groups, and

how you will administer the treatment(s)

• The experimental procedure. This can be in broad terms, but all critical information

must be included such that another researcher who reads your proposal would be able

to implement the experiment you describe

o You may wish to check the experimental papers assigned as readings in this

course for examples of how to describe the experimental design and

procedures.

If you choose an empirical study of existing data, your proposal must include the following

details:

• The source of the data (e.g. “OECD PISA data wave 2015”), or how you would plan

to collect it (e.g. “Scrape all Champion’s League football games from 2021-22 from

the UEFA website”)

• The key explanatory variable(s) (this would be the ‘X’ variable) and outcome

variables(s) (the ‘Y’ variable) from the data

• An explanation of how you plan to address any potential statistical biases such as

selection bias in your analysis. This may involve describing additional control

variables that you propose to include in your analysis of the data. If your design will

make use of a natural experiment, clearly detail the source of the randomisation and

why it means that your proposed method will accurately answer your research

question.

o For example, in Apesteguia and Palacios-Huerta (2010), the method of

choosing which football side gets the first penalty kick is random, which

prevents selection bias. In Gong (2015), the author made use of an existing

program (the VCT) that randomly assigned HIV testing.

No matter which method you use, you should clearly describe your treatment variable (or

variables; the ‘X’) and outcome variable (or variables; the ‘Y’).

Next, you should state how you plan to analyse the (experimental or natural) data, including

any statistical tests that you propose to use (such as a t-test). If there are other variables that

are important in your dataset (either an existing data set or one you will collect from your

experiment), describe them and how you will use them.

Finally, you should clearly state your hypotheses as they relate to the variables and tests. This

will include any sub-sample effects (also known as “heterogeneous effects”), e.g., does your

effect differ for males and females? (and how would you test this)?

A reminder that this section also contains a mandatory component: You must include at

least one table or figure.

6. Conclusion

Your conclusion should be short (1 paragraph). You may wish to describe what you will

conclude about your hypotheses or the motivating theories depending on which way your

results turn out, as well as any limitations of your research or risks for its implementation

(and how these might be mitigated). You should also describe the implications that you think

your results might have, for either existing economic theories or for policy-makers / industry

/ other relevant groups.

7. References

Your research proposal should be fully (and correctly) referenced, both within the text and by

including a full bibliography. You are free to use any of the standard referencing styles so

long as you are consistent (see UQ’s reference guide). To save time and guarantee accuracy,

especially if you use a lot of references, you may wish to use a referencing software like

Zotero or Endnote. For instance, Zotero (free!) can be installed as a web browser extension,

which is very handy because once you find a paper online, you can import it into your Zotero

library with one click. It also has a Word extension, meaning that you can import your library

references into your Word document and also add an automated bibliography of references

that updates by itself. (If you don’t use many references, it’s just as easy or easier to do things

manually.)

Submission:

Submit via the Turnitin link on Blackboard by the specified deadline. Requests for the

granting of extensions must be made online via

https://my.uq.edu.au/node/218/2#2 with supporting documentation before the submission due

date/time. If an extension is approved, the new agreed date for submission will be noted on

the application and the student notified through their student email. Extensions cannot exceed

the number of days you suffered from a medical condition, as stated on the medical

certificate.

If your proposal is submitted late without an approved extension, a penalty of 10% of the

maximum possible mark will be deducted per day for up to 7 calendar days, at which point

any submission will not receive any marks unless an extension has been approved. Each 24-

hour block is recorded from the time the submission is due. (See section 5.3 of the ECP for

more details.)

Criteria & Marking:

Criteria Maximum possible marks

Presentation

• Clarity and quality of written expression (10)

• Referencing (5)

Research Topic

• Originality (5)

• Clarity and justification of research question (5)

Literature and economic concepts

• Identification and critical use of literature (10)

• Understanding and explanation of relevant economic

concepts (5)

Research Methods

• Appropriateness and feasibility of proposed method

(5)

• Suitability to test a causal claim while avoiding

selection and other biases (5)

• Description of method, including setting, sample,

variables, design, procedures (20)

• Hypotheses and analysis plan (10)

Implications and limitations

• Implications of research (5)

• Limitation/risks of research proposal (5)

Recent Reference

• Substantially referenced at least one academic article

since the required date (5)

Table/Figure

• Labelled table/figure with self-contained explanation

in the caption (5)

Total 100

Table 1

Paper Title Research Question Method

Goldstein et al.

(2008)

"Do More Expensive

Wines Taste Better?"

Do higher prices reflect

higher quality for wine?

Field

experiment

Gneezy and

Rustichini

(2000a)

"A Fine is a Price Do higher costs always

reduce behaviour?

Field

experiment

Ariely, Kamenica

and Prelec (2008)

"Man's search for

meaning: The case of

Legos"

Does perceived meaning

for a worker’s work

increase or decrease their

reservation wage?

Lab

experiment

Apesteguia and

Palacios-Huerta

(2010)

"Psychological Pressure

in Competitive

Environments:

Evidence from a

Randomized Natural

Experiment"

Do psychological factors

affect optimal decision-

taking among experts in

competitive

environments?

Empirical

study

(natural field

experiment)

List (2003) "Does Market

Experience Eliminate

Market Anomalies?"

Does Market Experience

Eliminate Market

Anomalies?

Field

experiment

Post van den

Assem Baltussen

Thaler (2008)

"Deal or No Deal?

Decision Making under

Risk in a Large-Payoff

Game Show"

Do previous outcomes

affect future choices in

risky situations?

Empirical

study

(natural field

experiment)

Gong (2015) "HIV Testing and Risky

Sexual Behaviour"

Does HIV test

information increase

risky sexual behaviour?

Empirical

study

(natural field

experiment)

Niederle and

Vesterlund (2007)

"Do women shy away

from competition? Do

men compete too much?"

Does gender affect

competitiveness?

Lab

experiment

Cohn, Maréchal,

Tannenbaum and

Zünd (2019)

"Civic honesty around

the globe"

Do higher incentives

increase for dishonesty

lead to more dishonest

behaviour?

Field

experiment

Bertrand

Mullainathan

(2004)

"Are Emily and Greg

More Employable Than

Lakisha and Jamal? A

Field Experiment on

Labor Market

Discrimination"

Do employers exhibit

(taste-based) hiring

discrimination?

Field

experiment

Albrecht and

Smerdon (2022)

"The Social Capital

Effects of Refugee

Resettlement on Host

Communities"

Does social contact with

refugees increase or

decrease intergroup

trust?

Field

experiment

Appendix A: Marking Criteria and Standards

Criteria and mark 5 4 3 2 1—0

Presentation (15)

Clarity and quality

of written

expression (10)

Clarity of expression

excellent. Consistently

conventional grammar

and spelling: professional

writing style.

Language mainly fluent.

Grammar and spelling

mainly accurate.

Meaning apparent but

language not always

fluent. Grammar and

expression weak.

Language, grammar and

spelling do not adhere to

academic conventions.

Meaning of what has been

written not always clear.

Language, spelling and

grammar contain

numerous errors.

Meaning of what has been

written is unclear.

Referencing (5) Referencing clear and

consistently accurate.

Referencing mostly

accurate.

Referencing has minor

inconsistencies and

inaccuracies.

Referencing has many

inconsistencies and

inaccuracies.

Referencing seriously

inaccurate.

Criteria and mark 5 4 3 2 1—0

Research Topic (10)

Originality (5)

An original research

question related to

behavioural economics.

A largely original research

question related to

behavioural economics.

Research question is

similar to what has

already been done or is

loosely related to

behavioural economics.

A behavioural economics

research question is

unoriginal, or an original

research question

unrelated to behavioural

economics.

Research question is

unoriginal and unrelated

to behavioural economics.

Clarity and

Justification of

research question

(5)

Clear research question.

Compelling justification of

why the research question

is worth pursuing.

Clear research question.

Reasonable justification of

why the research question

is worth pursuing.

Reasonably clear research

question. General and

loose justification of why

the research question is

worth pursuing.

Limited or vague research

question and justification

of why the research

question is worth

pursuing.

Unclear or no research

question and/or

justification of the

research topic.

Criteria and mark 5 4 3 2 1—0

Literature and

economic concepts

(15)

Critical use of

literature (10)

Research ideas developed

from a critical appraisal of

relevant and authoritative

Relevant literature

appraised and used to

Some attempt to build

proposal on based on

Some attempt to relate

the proposal to the

Little or no attempt to

relate the proposal to the

literature.

literature (i.e. published in

leading journals).

develop some research

ideas in the process.

understanding of relevant

literature.

literature but no attempt

to be critical.

Understanding of

relevant economic

concepts (5)

Demonstrated sound

knowledge of relevant

economic concepts

underlying research.

Demonstrated knowledge

of relevant economic

concepts.

Some knowledge of

relevant economic

concepts and an attempt

made to apply the

concept to the research

topic.

Some evidence of

understanding of the

economic concepts