Economics 395 Spring 2002 |
Project Ideas You have the choice of an individual project, or a group project. The group project should be about twice the size (for a given quality) as an individual project. Depending on the number of people in a group, this could be a great rate of return. If you wish to do a group project, but cannot form a group on your own, tell me and I will form a "group pool," from which groups can form. As I said, I hate to give page length directions, since the idea is to do the best job you can with the limited resources at your disposal (sounds like economics to me!) A certain quantity of words is required simply to do justice to the topic, but lengthy prose is expensive for both the writer and the reader. Projects will be judged on the quality of the argument, the amount of relevant economics applied to the issue and the use of data as evidence to support your conclusions. I expect something more than a summary of a paper, a literature review or your own opinions on things. Here are some ideas for projects. I stole them unashamedly from the latest issues of The Economist. Just to prove to you how wonderful a magazine this is, I simply looked through the Business and the Finance and Economics sections. Below are some references to the issues from which I got the ideas. If any of them interest you, find the issue of The Economist, and read about it. Making this list took all day because I couldn't stop myself from reading most of the articles, and many of the others on the same, or nearby, pages. The Enron nightmare. (TE 12/1/01 p65, TE 12/8/01 p61, TE 1/19/02 p57, TE 1/26/02 p63) IComparative stock market performance. US equity markets outperform bonds, but is this true for other country's markets? (TE 2/2/02 p72) Is the equity premium larger than it should be? (many TE articles in last 2 years, see also TE 1/12/02 p67) Is corporate debt too large? (TE 2/16/02 p58) The PayPal IPO - internet stocks saving face? (TE 2/23/02 p65, see also TE 12/15/01 p61) The future of the small investor (TE 1/12/02 p63) Wine futures - pour me another one, just like the other one (TE 1/12/02 p63) Paying dividends, a good thing? (TE 1/12/02 p68) Private equity investment (TE 12/8/01 p63) Which companies return the most to investors? (TE 12/1/01 p59) Industry Analysis:
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