Referee Term Paper

The purpose of this assignment is to introduce you to the publication process in
economics and economic history.  While a textbook summarizes the main results of
thousands of published articles and books, it is important to see how economic history
research is actually done.
Your completed report must be uploaded to Canvas by Monday, November 29 before
10 p.m.  This report is worth 100 possible points if it is turned in before the deadline. 
For each 24‐hour period after the deadline, even 30 seconds after, there will be a 25‐
point deduction.  So, within 24‐hours of the deadline the maximum possible score is 75
points, in the next 24‐hours after that 50 points maximum, 25 points maximum in the
next 24‐hours, and zero points thereafter.  As a result, the assignment is worth a
maximum of zero points after 10 p.m. on Thursday, December 2, so no referee reports
are accepted after this time.
All reports must be typed and double‐spaced with appropriate font sizes, correct
spelling and grammar, and with a widely‐used reference style if you reference other
papers or sources.  Most economists use the author‐date style from the Chicago Manual
of Style (https://www(dot)chicagomanualofstyle(dot)org/tools_citationguide/citation‐guide‐
2.html), so this is strongly recommended.
Your final report is to be uploaded to Canvas under Assignments as a PDF file
(preferred), but it can also be a Microsoft Word document.  Details on the composition
and length of the report are described below.
What is a Referee Report?
A referee report is a critical part of the peer‐review process in academic research.  When
an article is submitted to an academic journal for possible publication, the editor of the
journal sends out the paper to several experts who are familiar with the topic and who
can evaluate the contributions and limitations of the submitted article. Your report is intended for the authors of the paper and for the journal editor.  There is
no absolute length requirement, but I would expect most reports to be between 3 and 5
double‐spaced pages, and it should include the following parts:
 A summary of the paper, which discusses the main research question(s), the
methodology used by the authors, and the main conclusions and contributions of
the paper.
 A discussion of whether the question or questions asked are important (or not)
and whether you find the results from paper convincing or not (and why?)
 A discussion of the concerns you have with the paper.  These concerns could be
related to the data being used, the theoretical model or models, the empirical
methods, sample selection issues (do the data seem to be a representative
sample?), possible alternative explanations for the results that the authors do not
consider (or do not consider sufficiently), and any other weaknesses of the paper,
which might include anything, including poor grammar, poor writing, or
misspellings.
 A referee report is meant to be constructive criticism, so, whenever possible,
provide possible suggestions for improvement.
 Finally, your report should include a recommendation to the editor on whether
to accept the paper for publication in its current form, to suggest that the authors
revise and later resubmit the paper for publication with suggested revisions, or
to reject the paper for publication.