The main goal of this assignment is to apply all of the techniques we have learned to our real job as economists - confronting and evaluating economic ideas.
When an economist submits his or her research to a journal, it goes through a (sadly) long process of refereeing. The journal editor sends the submitted paper to between one and three economists who are experts in the research area. These referees then write an evaluation of the paper which is critical in the editor's decision about whether or not to publish the paper. Your concluding assignment for this semester is to referee a journal article.
The article to be refereed is of your own choosing, under a few constraints:
My suggestion is to look in top general interest journals (American Economic Review, Econometrica, Review of Economic Studies, Quarterly Journal of Economics, Journal of Political Economy) or in good macro-specialist journals (Journal of Monetary Economics, Review of Economic Dynamics, NBER Macroeconomics Annual). Just about any macro paper in any of those journals will be acceptable. Papers in other journals or working papers might be acceptable.
Referee reports follow a standard format. Yours should be typed, double spaced and 2-4 pages long.
First, summarize in a page or less the subject and contribution of the paper. Be specific - don't say ``Solow analyzes a growth model'', instead say ``Solow shows that under standard neoclassical assumptions, long-run growth rates are dominated by technology rather than capital accumulation.'' If you don't think the paper has any new theoretical insights or empirical facts, say so - but you had better back up your claim. In order to do this job right, you will probably need to look at some of the articles cited in your paper's bibliography, and you will probably need to talk with me for background. But try not to pick a paper that requires you to spend days in the library.
Second, detail your criticisms of the paper. Every paper, even published works by prestigious researchers, has flaws, compromises, and shortcuts. (In case you don't believe me, the paper by Robert Solow that we'll spend the first two weeks analyzing and that helped win him a Nobel Prize has an obvious error in algebra.) These criticisms should be thoughtful and should form the bulk of your report. Be polite - in the real world, the author usually receives a copy.
Third, make a recommendation on whether the journal should publish the paper. This recommendation is usually made in a separate letter to the editor. Suppose this paper were submitted to this journal, and you were the editor/referee. Your options are:
If you reject, suggest an alternate journal for the paper. If you want revisions or have reasons for rejection, be clear about what they are. Most submissions receive either a flat rejection or a``revise and resubmit''. Finally, you can form a group of up to 3 students that work together to analyze the same paper. But each student must write his or her own report.