Filed under: Holy Grail
Today I went to the capital theory working group and the international working group, saw an almost totally theoretical paper, and an empirical/descriptive statistic paper. The first paper wants to do empirical also, but it achieves just that: want to. The second presenter was not shy about saying he does not have a model, yet in the end everybody in the room was impressed by the empirical facts that he painstakingly produced. The first presentation began with high expectations but faltered. The second presentation began with low expectation but took flight after.
What is good research? Sigh.
I find my experience in choosing paper topics in my English classes a suitable analogy to writing research papers. According to all my English teachers — the more specific the topic, the better.
A good paper (English) is able to analyze all aspect of the character and has a central thesis — the English teacher emphasizes.
Over the years, I have found a fail-safe plan — just find a minor character of the novel and dissect it. A minor character allows me to have more scope to interpret it because it is not already well developed by the author. Thus, I can hijack the character, and no one can say I am wrong. Furthermore, since the character didn’t get as much attention as the main character, when I bring her out into the spotlight, I, as the author, am deemed to get some attention.
For example, in writing a paper about Lolita, I picked the character Charlotte Haze, and wrote a 6 pages paper about her, and of course obtained excellent marks.
After watching Dark Knight, I eschewed the dark themes about hope which prevails across the 3 hour film and picked on the minutest point about the film’s discrimination against China.
But this fail-safe plan does not get other people to remember your work, for ultimately they just don’t care or get passionate about them.
So, now it’s time to, perhaps, stop this fail-safe plan, and be brave. And plunge into the messy world the major characters — or topics, in the case of research.
A little less than 4 years ago, I carried my trembling body into Professor Intensity’s office. In my nervous voice, I proposed my thesis topic. In less than 3 seconds, it was shot down to hell. I exited the office as a soldier dragging her defeated body away from the bloody battlefield. Then a couple days later, Prof Intensity send me an email with a suggestion for a topic, and said “if it’s not up to snuff, it will not qualify as an honor thesis.” I spent the next 3 months exerting the hightest effort on it. It was deemed “impressive” and gave me the first taste of research.
But I did not care for it. Truth is the topic is so uninteresting that it will waste of anybody’s time to work on it.
I never want to repeat that again.
Between that time and now, I have added one more independent paper in between. That paper, however many readers it is exposed to due to its publisher, AGAIN, is a methodology paper, which cannot capture the attention of an audience. The content of that paper, AGAIN, was suggested by my advisor.
It does not matter that I made any contribution to the topic, the fact is, that topic is not originated by me.
Til now I have not gotten the hang of finding a good topic, independently. By good topic, I mean one that is worth my time to dig into it.
It is my fear that I can never find one that interests people.
Today I have to repeat the scene 4 years ago, dragging my trembling self into a professor’s office to propose a topic. THE topic which I will be devoting my time to in the rest of the year. THE topic that can again prove myself or not prove myeslf to be a researcher.
Well, he did not declare with enthusiasm that “IT IS SO SO SO INTERESTING!”. He did not even say that, “hmm, this is interesting.” But he said, “this is doable, and there might be something there.” And he signed the paper.
There might be something there.
Well, that’s progress from 4 years ago! I am so glad!
Easterly and Levine:
In the search for the secrets of long-run economic growth, a high priority should go to rigorously defining TFP, empirically dissecting it, and identifying the policies and institutions most conducive to its growth.
Filed under: Holy Grail
Discussed research idea with JK.
Let’s think positive: the great thing is that now I won’t get needlessly excited about a topic that I conjured up. Because of this meeting I was forced to write up some ideas. And because of it, I now I have a lot of work to do.
How do people model exchange rate in asset pricing models? Just found this paper by Ribnon and Pavola — it took them 4 years to get the paper to the current working paper format.
I have a lot of work to do.
Plan of attack:
1. Study well for the final, and think about the general equilibrium/economic basis of the asset pricing models.
2. Read the Pavola or Engel paper.
