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EC371. Term project guidance and grading rubric.
100 points total for the empirical project: 20% for the final grade in this course.
The group-based presentation will be 10 minute long; about 3 students per group. Note
that the grade is individual, greatly depending on the contribution to the PowerPoint
presentation and participation in answering questions during the presentation.
The presentation is scheduled during the class time on April 22, 24, 26, and, if needed,
on April 29. The presentation slides (ONLY in PowerPoint format; no pdf files or
Google docs) should be uploaded on the blackboard under the designated for the
project folder by the deadline of 11pm on April 19, Friday.
Outline of the PowerPoint presentation (a template; will vary depending on the topic)
1. Title page (title, course, instructor name, term, team names).
The title should clearly define the research question that will be examined in your
analysis (e.g., “The effect of farmland ownership on pesticide pollution rates across
counties in Japan”, please avoid generally defined topics such as “The pesticides
pollution”).
2. Background (2-4 sentences about the topic) Includes a problem statement
3. Previous research summary: 2-3 papers, indicate author’s last name , year of
publication, and brief content, like this:
Smith (2013) – described the possibility of the Coasian solution to certain pollution
externalities.
Note: the full reference (journal title, paper title, volume, and issue of the journal)
must be indicated in the last slide containing References (Bibliography). Do not
provide it in the literature review slide.
4. Theory learned in class (any of the chapters in H&R book we discussed)
5. Students’ analysis
6. Students’ analysis
7. Students’ analysis
8. Students’ analysis
9. Summary and conclusion
10. Possible extensions of the project research
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11. All the references mentioned in the presentation (journal title, paper title,
volume, and issue of the journal; address of the Internet link)
II. Team presentations will be evaluated according to the following criteria:
1. Teamwork and collaboration.
2. Addressing theoretical concepts covered in class, through real-life applications or
meta-analysis of the scholarly literature on the topic (exemplary presentation is
scheduled in class on Wednesday April 17).
3. Match between the narrowly defined title of the presentation and the topic of the
regression analysis. Example: students would like to discuss whether Hotelling’s rule
holds up in real markets of depletable resources and conduct the meta-analysis of the
empirical evidence. Well-defined title: Hotelling’s rule: theory versus empirical
evidence. The topic should be closely focused on each slide of the presentation all
factors conveying the focus idea of the project: Hotelling rule and observed net
prices of depletable resources.
4. Visualization of data and concepts using diagrams, tables, pictures, scatterplots from
scholarly and reliable media sources on the Internet.
5. The level of expertise: knowledge of the theoretical topic and relevant concepts and
your own slides (“it was not my slide” argument will not be accepted!).
6. Summary slide should be accompanied by the detailed references to all the articles
and Internet links.
7. The presentation must represent a coherent representation of the topic of interest and
should not be based on one article that the team rephrases. Each graph/diagram/data
table must be accompanied by the source, both in that slide and in the overall
references on the last slide.
8. All team members should participate in the presentation.
9. The presentation slides (ONLY in PowerPoint format; no pdf files or Google docs)
should be uploaded on the blackboard under the designated for the project folder by
the deadline of 11am on April 19, Friday.
10. Overall effort (quality of the slides; presentation rehearsal to practice the timing of
the presentation, etc.) Quality of addressing after-the-presentation questions.
