Assignment: Industrial Organization and Public Policy

How to read an article

Here is a list of some of the questions you might think about as you read a scholarly article in economics. Many of these are obvious and don't generally require written answers. This exercise will give you a list of things to think about for your article summaries and prepare you to read and digest scholarly articles on your own. Knowing what questions to ask and how to ask them when you read should help you in all of your classes, as you'll be able to get through a large amount of material efficiently AND effectively.

We will work on this exercise in class, and you'll be writing answers to the questions listed. When you are working on your own, you may choose to follow this exact process and write out your answers, or you may simply think about (refer to) these questions before or as you are reading.

As with a summary of this article (which we'll work on tomorrow), your goal here will be to produce answers in your own words that are as accurate and jargon-free as possible.

1. Consider the article "Do Firms Maximize? Evidence from Professional Football" Based on just the title, what do you expect Prof. Romer will be trying to do? What question will he be trying to answer, and how do you predict he'll do this?

2. What knowledge do you bring to this paper? For example, how much do you know about professional football? About other sports? What classes have you had (in economics or elsewhere) that might relate in some way to this article?

3. Next, read the article summary. How does this change your answer to question 1? Based on just the summary, see if you can come up with a list of three Econ-related questions that the article will likely NOT be able to answer.

4. Look at the acknowledgements at the bottom of the page. Who does the author thank? Do you know anything about these people (it's ok if you don't, but always a good idea to look, as this can give you a clue about how this paper will be situated in the literature)? Are there earlier versions of the paper listed? What can you glean about the paper's purpose from them?

5. Scroll through the paper quickly. This should take no more than 3 minutes, for the entire paper. You are looking to see how the paper is organized, and whether the project appears to be mainly theoretical or empirical. Once you've done this, write down your very initial impressions - is the paper mainly theoretical or empirical? What makes you think this? How do your observations (including the titles given for the section headings) make you want to revise the predictions you made in question 1?

6. Read the paper's conclusion. What results does the paper claim? How does the paper show them? Does the author point out shortcomings or weaknesses? If so, how does the author resolve them (or what does the author suggest could be done to resolve them)?

7. Look carefully at the bibliography. What other papers are cited? Is there an author you've seen elsewhere? To what literature (or literatures) does it appear this paper is contributing? Based on the titles and authors, are there articles you'd be interested in exploring further?

8. Finally, read the entire paper, taking notes at the end of each section. As you read, notice what you don't understand and see if you can explain (in simple English) what the author is trying to do. Mathematical analysis can be hard to get through, but remember that the equations are shorthand language used to express economic ideas. You should be able to find a sentence or two near each equation that explains the economic ideas being conveyed.