Programming Question

You have just been hired by a federal agency as a policy adviser. Your assignment is to test what policies may be effective (or not effective) at decreasing obesity rate in the United States. Propose one policy variable and use regression analysis to substantiate your answer.

https://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/index.html

Rubric, Example and Instructions are posted below.

Short Research Paper
Fall 2023
Due: 9/15
Short Paper Grading Rubric
Required Elements
TA comments
Weight
Introduction / Research Question
• Importance of the study is presented
• Project is clearly explained
15
Literature Review
• Review 2 or more research papers
• Literature review is structured
• Presented evidence relies on peer reviewed publications
• Current state of literature is summarized
10
Regression Model
• Includes estimating equation
• Defines dependent and explanatory variables
10
Data
• Presents data sources for each variable
• Includes descriptive statistics table
15
Empirical results
• Table of regression results from STATA
• Interpret all significant coefficients
15
Conclusions
• Policy implications are based on empirical results
• Compare results to previous literature
• Discuss limitations
10
Writing Quality
• Logical presentation of ideas
• Formal style
• Paragraphs have proper length and well structured
10
Points earned
Introduction
 Topic
 Introduce one independent variable that you hypothesize CAUSES changes in obesity rates
(do not confuse regression coefficients with correlation)
 Add variable to given data set
 Avoid reverse causality and obvious relationships
 Justify importance of the study
 Use your own sources and your own writing
 Introduce your hypothesis
 Make sure your independent variable of interest does not have a certain effect on your
dependent variable
 Justify reasons for government intervention
 Externalities: negative or positive
 Myopic behavior
 Information failure
 Inequality
Literature Review: Research Guide
 PubMed
 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/
 Health Affairs
 https://www.healthaffairs.org/
 Google Scholar
 https://scholar.google.com/
Empirical Model
 Add your variable to estimating equation
 Define all variables (note that some are vectors of variables)
 Should you keep education??
Data
 List all data sources
 Use the latest available data
 Note that some variables come from different years
 Add one variable to the data section
 Explain how your variable is measured
 Make sure your variable captures rate, not size of the state
 Data modifications
 Sample size
 Descriptive statistics table
 Describe your descriptive statistics in the text
Empirical Results
 PASTE your empirical results directly from STATA into your paper (use
paste as picture option)
 Interpret your main variable of interest and all other significant
variables
 What if my variable is not significant (p>0.1)????
 Variables are significant when: p