Governments, businesses, non-profits, funders, and other organizations must allocate scarce resources between competing uses. Understanding the causal effect of policies, programs or investments on key outcomes can guide the choices of these decision-makers. Correlations between policies and outcomes or changes in outcomes after new policies are adopted are rarely sufficient for estimating the causal effect, however. This course focuses on econometric strategies for obtaining unbiased causal estimates, including experimental methods, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, and differences-in-differences. There will be an emphasis on using Stata and on interpreting the results of econometric analysis.

Prerequisites/Rules:
Prerequisite: 1 course with a minimum grade of C- from (ECON306, ECON326) and 1 course with a minimum grade of C- from (ECON424, ECON422). Restriction: Permission of BSOS-Economics department; Must be in one of the following programs (Economics Bachelor of Arts; Economics Bachelor of Science; Economics minor; Social Data Science-Economics).
Credits: 3
Grading Method: Regular, Pass-Fail, Audit

Course Offerings

    Spring 2024Instructor: Jessica Goldberg
    Fall 2023Instructor: Sergio Urzua
    Spring 2023Instructor: Jessica Goldberg
    Fall 2022Instructor: Sergio Urzua
    Spring 2022Instructor: Jessica Goldberg
    Spring 2021Instructor: Jessica Goldberg