In economics, there are broadly two types of papers, empirical papers and theoretical papers. This article covers the structure of empirical papers.

Empirical papers in economics usually contain the following sections (Reference 1, Reference 2):

  • Title
  • Abstract
    • Research question
    • My contribution
    • How I answer the question
    • Results
  • Introduction
    • Research question
    • Motivate
    • Where my research fit
    • Identify my contribution
    • Summarize how I intend to answer the research question
    • State my general results and answer to my research question
  • Literature Review
    • General assessment of the literature (abundant, not much, focus on methodological issues, etc.)
    • Describe the aspects of the literature that are most relevant to your study
  • Empirical model/empirical methodology
    • Model
      • make predictions of what you expect to find in the data
    • Analysis
      • Data
        • Identify and describe the source, explain why the source was used
        • Identify any caveats (e.g. the data over-represents a certain demographic population)
      • Preliminary data analysis
        • Summary stats
        • Histograms
        • Time series plots
        • Other similar information
      • Regression
        • Regression equation
        • Discussion justifying this equation
        • Description of the expected signs of the coefficients for each of the explanatory variables
        • Make clear connections back to the theory section and the literature review section
  • Results
    • Open with an overview of what results will be presented
    • Present results
    • Explain why these results are interesting
  • Conclusion
    • Restate the research question, describe what we know about this research question from the literature, and briefly describe the theoretical answer to the question
    • Answer the research question based on empirical analysis, compare findings to the consensus in the literature, pointing out possible reasons for differences and similarities.
    • Policy implications and point toward directions for future research