Economics of Development

Format of the essays

 

 

Essay topics

 

We leave the choice of topic entirely up to you. However, the essay must be on economics

 

You could discuss your essay topics

 

 

Make sure you write about economics! Start off by formulating your research question.

 

A topic of the sort “Economics of Development” is too broad!It is often easier to write a

 

good and interesting essay if you cover a narrower topic rather than attempting a wide

 

sweep. Try to be very clear and to the point in formulating your ideas and setting up a

 

structure for the essay. One way of making both clear is to (for yourself) make a skeleton of

 

the discussion: make bullet points of all the arguments you intend to discuss, possibly with

 

sub-bullets. Ask yourself if you have all items included and structured the arguments in a

 

way that will enable the reader to recognize/follow this structure when reading your final

 

text. Consider whether you can clarify the structure by changing the order of bullets or regrouping under sub-headings some (or even all) the original bullet points.

 

3 Structure of the essay

 

The first page should give the essay title, your name and student number as well as a word

 

count. All pages of your essay should have a page number printed on it. You might want to

 

include a list of contents before the main body of the essay. The essay should have the

 

following structure:

 

• Title page

 

The title need not be identical to the question that you are studying. In fact, it is

 

probably best if the two do not coincide. For example, “Discuss the reasons of

 

underdevelopment. Can you suggest a way out of the problem?” is not a good title. It

 

might be natural for a lecturer to use such a formulation when suggesting a topic for

 

an essay. But this does not mean that you should use exactly that formulation as the

 

title of your final essay. Instead of the title above one could, for example, use “Reasons

 

for underdevelopment: A discussion” or “Ways out of the underdevelopment

 

problem.”

 

• An introductory section

 

An effective introduction will map out the course that you will be taking the reader on

 

in your essay. Make sure that you motivate your essay question, explain exactly what

 

the essay will be about and how it will be structured. The reader needs to know early

 

on what he or she can expect to find in your essay, and where in the essay he or she

 

can find some particular discussion.

 

• A main section

 

This part is the meat of your essay. State clearly assumptions that are underlying your

 

analysis and include definitions as well as brief explanations of key concepts (you can

 

assume that the reader knows the level of economics that you do). Present your

 

arguments in a coherent and logical order. Sub-sections are often very useful for this

 

purpose. In general, you should aim to bring related material together under a general

 

heading. Organize your material in sections that relate logically to each other. Be sure

 

to explain the intuition for results rather than enter into unnecessary details. Discuss

 

how the results from the literature can be used and why they are important to answer

 

the question that you are trying to analyze. Including tables with supporting data and

 

figures with illustrations is usually extremely helpful (be sure to number tables and

 

figures for easier reference). If you provide mathematical formulas, always make clear

 

what variables in them mean (e.g., ñi: random return on asset i). Moreover, it usually is

 

helpful to restate verbally what an equation means. Be consistent in your notation

 

(and do not just copy formulas from various sources without thinking about how they

 

relate). Always make clear where relevant information can be found in your essay

 

(e.g., pointing out that the summary statistics are given in table 4; referring to

 

equation (4); etc.).

 

• A conclusion

 

This section should summarize the main points of your essay and wrap up the

 

sequence of ideas that you presented in a neat package. You might want to give an

 

outlook on what open questions remain or briefly point out caveats. For example,

 

include in your discussion what assumptions the theories you presented required and

 

how results would be likely to change if one modified them, what implications for the

 

broader topic the presented theories have, how they can guide real-life decisions, etc.

 

• A bibliography

 

This is a list of the references you cited in the essay. These should be alphabetically

 

ordered (by last name of the first author). See hints for doing citations/references

 

below.

Last Completed Projects