Alternative to the Ungraded Research Obligation

One of the requirements of QM222 is that students participate in two, 45-minute-long
sessions for a faculty member’s research project. For students who cannot schedule
those appointments or who would prefer to opt out of the obligation, this writing
assignment is the alternative.
Find a regression. The regression can be either a simple regression or a multiple
regression, but you should possess both point estimates and either standard errors,
p-values, or t-statistics for the main coefficients. You might find the regression in
a published academic study by searching Google Scholar, JSTOR, or PubMed, or a
similar source. Or perhaps you may find a regression on social media or the open
web.
Then create a document with answers to the following questions. Give the document,
on paper, to your instructor.

1. Write a paragraph providing background and describing the research question.
   What is the point of the regression?
2. Where do the data come from?
3. How many observations are there in the regression? What constitutes an observation:
   a person, a country, a time period?
4. Provide each estimated coefficient and standard error. Indicate whether each
   estimate is statistically significant at the five-percent level.
5. Interpret the sign of the key coefficients. Why are they positive or negative?
6. Interpret the magnitude of the key coefficients. What do the numbers mean?
7. Overall, what conclusion can you draw from the regression?
8. Document your sources: from where did you pull the regression? If an academic
   publication, provide the bibliographic information. If an alternative source,
   provide the URL and describe the author

Sample Solution