Kursinformation

The course aims at introducing students to the main theoretical and empirical tools used for data analysis and applied empirical research. The course will focus on the identification and estimation of causal relationships. At the end of the course, participants should be able to critically read scientific articles and to start designing and performing their own analysis using the tools illustrated. The methods presented will allow students to address policy questions that are relevant from a social and economic perspective. For example: Does smoking cause cancer? Does an additional year of education increase future earnings? Does job training increase productivity? Does minimum wage affect unemployment? Does more police reduce crime rate?
Students will be introduced to applied micro econometrics toolkits and at the end of the course students will be able to search for policy relevant questions, define a credible and appropriate research design, collect data and perform empirical analysis through the use of econometric software (i.e. Stata).