Course 2024-2025 a.y.

- Students who do not have an intermediate level experience with Stata and Statistics should attend the course 20684 STATA PREPARATORY COURSE and 20356 PRECORSO DI STATISTICA / STATISTICS - PREPARATORY COURSE in August before the start of this course.
 

• Directed Acyclic Graphs
• The ideal experiment and the potential outcomes framework.
• The simple linear regression model.
• Matching
• Instrumental variables
• Regression Discontinuity Design

• Shift-share instruments

• Panel data: fixed effects

• Difference-in-Differences

• Understand the main econometric methods used in empirical research.
• Identify the basic properties of estimators and the conditions under which they apply

• Understand the principles behind applied empirical methods used in the social sciences

• Structure sensible research hypotheses to answer specific research/policy questions.

• Prepare and manipulate data for empirical analysis
• Choose a research design suitable for a given research question and compatible with the available data.

• Apply and code statistical software to conduct regression analyses.

• Interpret and present the findings of econometric analysis.

• Critically engage with texts and journal articles which involve empirical work, recognizing the problems encountered when dealing with data in practice.

• Lectures
• Practical Exercises
• Collaborative Works / Assignments

• Each teaching session will contemporaneously blend in basic econometric theory, a discussion of empirical papers and practical applications with STATA.
• The course syllabus will contain information on required readings, including a number of research papers.
• Students will be randomly assigned to groups to develop a simple research project. We will provide a set of readily available datasets. Groups will autonomously identify a research question suitable for the data and then choose empirical methods effective to answer the research question.
• Students will learn how to effectively summarize their research process and present their research project in class in front of their peers.
• Students will write a paper draft summarizing their project

Assessments will be written and taken on your laptop in person in class using Respondus browser. There will be no different format between attending and non-attending students. 

Closed questions and exercises will focus on the understanding of econometric concepts, empirical evidence and intuition, as opposed to memorization of mathematical formulas. You are expected to be able to apply the empirical methods we learn in class to new empirical contexts in the exam, to read and interpret analysis outputs generated by STATA, to type STATA commands aimed at performing given analyses, to choose which method is most appropriate for a given empirical context and research question, to give policy suggestions based on given empirical evidence.

Exams will cover also STATA coding, the content of academic papers and of the in-class presentations of your classmates.

The assessment is composed of a written exam and a research project carried on in team:

1. Written Exam: The exam can either be taken in two partials (first partial worth 35%, second partial 25%) or in one final exam (worth 60%) at the end of the course. 
    
2. Research project in team Research project in team is worth 40% of final score and will be evaluated with an in-class presentation of the research project plus the grading of a written draft and of the STATA code used to generate the results. Teams are randomly selected.

For Students with little previous experience in empirical data analysis or for students who want to review basic statistical concepts and data analysis fundamentals, I strongly recommend to regularly refer to the following book:

A. Colin Cameron. ANALYSIS OF ECONOMICS DATA: AN INTRODUCTION TO ECONOMETRICS (2022). Hard copy available at Bocconi library and Pdf available at  https://cameron.econ.ucdavis.edu/aed/ for  USD 6.99

Blackboard recorded lectures and slides from 20684 STATA PREPARATORY COURSE

Blackboard recorded lectures and slides from 20356 PRECORSO DI STATISTICA / STATISTICS - PREPARATORY COURSE

Cunningham, Scott. ”Causal inference: The mixtape.” (2021). https://mixtape.scunning.com/

Additional textbooks and readings will be indicated in the detailed syllabus and during the lectures.

A useful reference for applications in Stata is the following:

Cameron, C. and P.K. Trivedi. Microeconometrics Using Stata, First or Second Edition (Stata Press 2010, 2022). Available at Bocconi library.