Advising honors theses, even for terrific Stanford Econ students, is a lot more subject to constraints. It is not their whole life. They are on deadline. So I always worked more on the "this is overtly wrong" and "here is a cheap thing you can do to make it better". Agree with others here!

To some degree, this depends on what the goal is of the undergrad student. If they are writing an honors thesis to have a writing sample to submit for econ grad school, it might look different than if they are planning on the job market or another grad program.

I focus way more on the learning process than on the final results (null effects, pre-trends that can’t be killed, bad first stage, etc. are all fine!).

I also don’t stress about a large or novel contribution to the literature. A minor tweak or new application of existing work is great!

When I was an undergrad writing my senior thesis I had the exact same question. Reading other people’s undergrad senior thesis helped a lot to set the standards and boosted my confidence. In my school, they are all public record in the department.

What makes for “good” undergraduate research?

I’m worried years of reading polished work in journals and from grad students has distorted my perception, so I’m trying to find the sweet spot of “rigor” at that level without pushing too hard towards unrealistic expectations

Yep! 😒 I figured you saw it haha

Tbh I’d respect them more if they just came out and said “I think poor kids deserve less, actually!” We grown, man. You too big to be doing the “I’m just asking questions” Very Serious Scholar shtick

I guess I should feel bad about Austan catching strays here? I don't know that man. Larry sucks, tho

Oh thanks! 🙏🏽 And whew, thankfully I’m not yet haha. Doing one more lap. Just sifting through a bunch of papers this year!

Yea i noticed that, too! Wouldn’t have quite expected that to be the outside option, but the poasters gotta go somewhere i guess