(a) State one possible project topic of interest to you, being careful to state it in the form of a question about a causal effect (as described in the project description document and in class). : "What is the causal effect of 'your X' on 'your Y'?"

(b) In just a few sentences, explain why an increase in "your X," while holding everything else that might affect "your Y" constant, might cause a substantial increase or decrease in "your Y." This is harder to do well than you might think. Be sure to describe the reason for a causal effect and not just a correlation. Often it is useful to think of a policymaker increasing "your X," without changing anything else. You can then describe how specific actors who are affected by that policy might respond to the increase in X, in ways that cause your Y to change.

For example, if your question is "What is the effect of the level of the legal minimum wage (X) on teen unemployment(Y)?", you could imagine policymakers increasing the level of the legal minimum wage, without changing anything else about economic structure or policy, and then thinking about how and why employers of low-wage workers might react to the policy change in a way that affects unemployment of teenagers. [The basic economic theory of profit-maximizing production by producers who compete in output and input markets says that when the wage that employers/producers must pay for low-wage workers rises, while everything else that affects their production and employment choices remains constant, they will tend to reduce the quantity of low-wage labor (including teen labor) that they employ, though the theory does not tell us whether this effect will be large or small. As employment for teen labor falls, the official unemployment rate among teens is likely to rise.]

If you cannot explain such logic easily and completely, then it is possible that you have not identified a well-motivated and well-articulated question about a causal effect, and you may wish to start again with a different question.

(c) Give the full citation and URL for an academic journal article or working paper that addresses a question similar to the one you posed in part a. I suggest that you use Econlit (a search engine for economics journal articles and working papers, to which you can find a link in the Ginn library web pages) to help you in your search. You are also welcome to reference a paper you have encountered in another course.

(d) Give a reference (including the URL where relevant) to a source of data for "your Y" variable, "your X" variable, or both. You do not yet have to download the data. No analysis of the data is necessary.

(e) Read this question part carefully and completely to avoid mistakes! Study the data source you referenced in your answer to part d. What is the "unit of observation" for which this data source reports values of your Y or your X? The unit of observation is the entity represented by each row in your data. For example, are the units for which you have data individual people, households, cities, countries, firms, conflict episodes, or some other sort of entity? (It is important to understand that the "unit of observation" in your data is not the same as the "units" in which one of your variables is measured.) Example: The "unit of observation" in the dataset you used above is "a worker."(It is not "dollars per hour.")