Blog #2

By now the reality of a research report is starting to kick in. The previous week’s endeavours have certainly made clear to me the difficulties of the topic I have chosen. While I have made considerable progress in my journey of research, and question preparation, I have encountered some difficulties in obtaining statistical data. I require this data early on so that I can begin to formulate concrete hypotheses that can hopefully be followed throughout the entirety of my report.

Reading literature from the Australian Bureau of Statistics has shown me that whilst similar studies have been undertaken in relation to migration and its implication on Australian wage, I am still witnessing a gap in the migration question. This has helped me further detail my proposed research question: “Does immigration into Sydney cause (or, is it correlated with) native movement away from Sydney? Assessment of the Harris-Todaro migration model”. I have decided, after continuous clicks, scrolls (and rage-quits) through library databases that I would first like to assess the impact migration has on skilled and unskilled wages in the city of Sydney, then I aim to extract a correlation (or even the blasphemous: causality!) between any wage difference realised and net migration away from Sydney.

The difficulties with data collection should be overcome given that I continue to give this report the consistent approach it requires. With patience, further digging into the ABS will allow me to access the necessary data for analysis. Then I just need to figure out what to do with it… Once I have obtained more data, my time will be focused on developing a solid methodology so that a strong, convincing output can be generated toward the end of the report. I hope econometrics is fun 😬