research

1. Series VII: Results and Interpretation – Part II
(Robustness)
WRITING EMPIRICAL PAPERS FOR
SCOPUS JOURNALS

2. NOTES
Part II discusses organization of
Tables (Baseline and Robustness)
and discussion of results.
Good papers would have several
tables of results.
Part II
Good Papers
The presentation on results and
interpretation is for empirical
papers – those that apply
regression/econometric models to
examine the relationships between
the variables
Empirical Papers
1
3
2

3. CONTENT
Suggested
Structure and
Discussion
Submission of
Task III: Empirical
Methods
04. STRUCTURE
01. SUBMISSION
Few Examples
from Journals
How to conduct
robustness
checks? Hints
02. EXAMPLES 03. ROBUSTNESS
CORPORATE

4. 4
TASK III: METHODS
4
GROUP II GROUP III
GROUP I
PAPERS 17, 19, 39
SECONDARY DATA
PANEL DATA
SURVEY DATA OTHER METHODS
SEM (47, 58, 69)
Not indicated in the method
section (43, 63)
ARIMA (Paper 9)
ANOVA (Paper 46)
Discussion is based on papers using standard econometric models (Group I and
others that use cross-sectional data). However, some guidelines will generally
applicable for survey data and time-series data.

5. The implications of economic
uncertainty for bank loan
portfolios
Mohapatra & Purohit
2021
Economic policy uncertainty and
financial stability–Is there a
relation? 94: 1018-1029
Phan et al.
2021
EXAMPLES FROM JOURNALS

6. OBJECTIVE: This paper analyzes the
impact of economic uncertainty on the
composition of bank credit across
household and firm loans.
Baseline Results

7. Robustness
 Alternative measure of economic
uncertainty
 Alternative samples (in baseline regression,
US banks that meet sample criteria are
included. For robustness: (i) inclusion of all
US banks; (ii) exclusion of all US banks
 Lagged Measure of uncertainty (by 2 to 4
years)
 Controlling for credit information sharing
 Country-level data
 Sample split by trade credit utilization
 Alternate variants of the dependent
variable ….
OBJECTIVE: This paper analyzes the
impact of economic uncertainty on the
composition of bank credit across
household and firm loans.

8. OBJECTIVE: This paper analyzes the impact of economic policy uncertainty on bank stability

9. Robustness
 Bank-level Data (Baseline – country level
 Natural logarithm of Z-score (Baseline – Z score
 Inclusion of GFC dummy
 Alternative samples – The sample comprises 23
countries. Constructing 23 sub-samples by
dropping a country from the sample
 Addressing Endogeneity

10. ROBUSTNESS
BUSINESS
PLAN PHASES
Specification
Measuremen
ts
Samples
Estimatio
n
Methods
Your results may
depend on model
specification
adopted by
researchers
Your results may
depend on the
measures you use
Your results may
depend on the
sample you use
Your results may
depend on the
estimation method
used by researchers
How would you (or others)
challenge the baseline model and
results?

11. INDEPENDENT
VARIABLES
STATISTICAL
ASSUMPTIONS
FUNCTION
Which independent variables
(controlled variables) should
be included?
Statistical assumptions that
we make: most notably, the
exogeneity/endogeneity
assumption. This is likely
leading to a different
estimation method.
The standard specification
is linear regression (linear
in the parameters)
MODEL SPECIFICATION
My preference is to start the baseline model
with few regressions, differentiated by sets
of controlled variables.

12. MEASUREMENTS
Example: NPL, LLP, Z-Score,
Component of Z-Score
Are there alternative
ways of measuring the
DV?
Dependent
Variable
(DV)
Independen
t Variables
(Focus)
Are there alternative
ways of measuring IV?
Example: Financial Inclusion

13. SAMPLES – Many different ways
EXCLUSION OF OBSERVATIONS
BASED ON OTHER JUSTIFIABLE
CRITERIA
SPLITTING THE SAMPLES INTO
DIFFERENT PERIODS
(This can add further insights
WINSORIZING
EXCLUSION OF POTENTIAL
OUTLIERS BASED ON CERTAIN
STANDARD TESTS
SPLITTING SAMPLES INTO
DIFFERENT GROUPS (This can add
further insights)
JACKKNIFE REGRESSION –
DROPPING IN TURNS EACH
OBSERVATION OR UNIT
CONSIDER THESE VARIOUSAND
OTHER POTENTIAL WAYS IN
CONSTRUCTING THE SAMPLES

14. ESTIMATION PROCEDURES
BASELINE
ENDOGENEI
TY
INSTRUMENTAL
VARAIBLE-BASED
METHODS
BASELINE
Baseline model normally
assumes that the independent
variables are exogenous
(unless specified otherwise
and it is linear)
ENDOGENEITY
There may be strong reasons
that the independent
variables are endogenous.
How to treat this?
OTHER ASSUMPTIONS
Need to closely understand
the assumptions of the
baseline model (Normality,
independence of error terms,
etc.)
OTHER
ASSUMPTIO
NS ALTERNATIVE
ESTIMATION

15. LET US LOOK AT OUR PAPERS

16. STRUCTURE OF RESULTS AND ROBUSTNESS
BASELINE RESULTS
ROBUSTNESS I
ROBUSTNESS II
ROBUSTNESS III
Baseline Results:
?????
?????
?????

17. 4. RESULTS
4.3
4.2
4.1
BASELINE RESULTS
 Table xxx presents the baseline results…
 May mention diagnostic tests first
 Discuss in details the key variables (main objectives of the paper). Highlight
conclusions or inferences from the baseline results.
 Discuss the other variables in brief
OTHER ANALYSES (IF APPLICABLE)
Researchers may have extended the baseline models to address other objectives of
the paper. If not, researchers can proceed to ROBUSTNESS
ROBUSTNESS
Discuss each robustness in turns
Justify the robustness checks
Highlight whether the key results from the baseline models are further supported. If there
is deviation, then explain the results
There is no need to go into details as in 4.1 Baseline Results

18. THANK YOU