I interviewed Ann Harrison, Professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics.  She conducts research in international economics and her main research interests include foreign direct investment, multinational corporations, and trade, and how these activities affect economic activity in developing countries.  Professor Harrison's research is empirical rather than theoretical and centers on the analysis of data and policy effects.  Her data include statistics on trade and foreign direct investment flows, and she finds a lot of data on the Internet, on websites for organizations such as the WTO, U.S. Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  She also finds data in previously published articles and at conferences, where word of mouth among colleagues is a good source of information.

When formulating her research questions, Professor Harrison considers whether people care about her potential topic and chooses topics that are current policy issues or areas that people are concerned about.  Within the topic, she identifies questions that are answerable, namely questions for which there is available data.