30300 - EMPIRICAL RESEARCH METHODS
CLEAM - CLEF - CLEACC - BESS-CLES - BIEMF
Course taught in English
Go to class group/s: 31
The course introduces students to the main tools used for data analysis and applied empirical research, focusing in particular on the estimation of causal relationships. The methods covered allow students to address questions that are relevant from a social, economic, and political perspective: Which are the economic returns of one additional year of schooling? Do longer prison sentences deter crimes? Do better paid politicians perform better? What’s the economic impact of immigration flows? These are just examples of the type of questions that motivate the use of empirical methods. At the end of the course, students should be able to go through the multiple stages of empirical research: searching for interesting questions, devising an appropriate research design, collecting the data, and implementing the analysis.
- The ideal experiment: Causal effects and the selection problem.
- Randomized controlled trials.
- From observational data to natural experiments: instrumental variables.
- Panel, difference-in-differences, and synthetic control models.
- Regression discontinuity designs.
Grading System:
- 75% based on the grade in the written exam;
- 25% based on individual assignments
- Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke Mastering Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect, Paperback with French folds , 2014
- Exact syllabus, lecture slides, and reading materials will be available on the E-Learning space.