I hope this is the place to ask this question. I am in the first year of PhD in economics. As most of PhD students in economics, I try to show some economic mechanisms by modelling.
Most of time, I have a tendency to base largely on other models in the literature. I try to incorporate my idea in existing models but it does not work really well. For those who are in economics, how do you start to model your idea ? Do you start from a really basic model and complexify after ?