This course explores the use of econometrics in empirically answering questions about the efficacy of public policy. The course starts with a review of “statistical correlation” and proceeds to “cause and effect.” This narrowing of focus is essential for assessing policy impacts empirically, but is quite challenging to implement. This course builds a set of critical and practical econometric skills with which to evaluate whether correlation is likely to reflect causation.

Students often inquire about their statistics and economics preparation. To be sure, this course has a substantial mathematics/statistics component, but it is not a course in theoretical or applied statistics as a mathematics department would teach it. This course trains students in bridging the gap between statistics/mathematics and the economic behaviors they are supposed to represent. It is useful to think of statistics/mathematics as telling an abstract story about the policy environment, and human data telling a real story. Data are uninterpretable without the analytical abstraction, and the mathematics are not verifiable without the reality. But if the two can harmonize,
some very useful policy conclusions can potentially be drawn.

The framing of policy analysis in an economic context should not be confused with a focus on “economic policy” such as macroeconomics or finance. Economics provides a theory of human decision-making in the presence of general kinds of incentives, and most public policies alter the incentives (monetary or otherwise) of the governed. Topics to be explored this semester include the US housing market, healthcare provision, educator incentives, and Presidential elections.

This course continues as “Econometric Analysis of Public Policy II” in the Spring semester.

Compensates PEACE003 Research Methods course in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research programme.

Enrolment and participation for the course:
Priority is given for North American studies programme students and the degree students in Master's programme in Peace, Mediation and Conflict Research (1st year students).
If places are available, students are selected in the following order:
- UTA degree students from other programmes
- UTA exchange students

This course examines the use of experiments to inform public policy. At its core, an experiment involves some kind of controlled, exogenous manipulation of an environment for the purpose of examining how people respond in different situations. The course begins with one of the smallest possible human manipulations: the presentation of different stimuli to the brain. This provides the neuroeconomic foundation of human choice, from which some policy conclusions can already be drawn. The course then moves up one macroeconomic level, examining laboratory experiments. These are more recognizable manipulations of incentives such as prices and costs, but in an artificial, controlled environment. Laboratory experiments are intended to provide arguments-by-analogy to real policy environments, which can be used to suggest policy effects. The course then proceeds to field experiments (or randomized controlled trials). There is less argument-by-analogy with field experiments, but generalization to other environments is usually difficult.

Students will apply the principles learned in the course by conducting a laboratory experiment of their choosing. This project will give students experience presenting evidence as a policy analyst might.

Examples of experiments that have been implemented for US policy analysis will be presented. Topics include health, employment, environment, and education. Students may also suggest topics of interest to them.

The success of the Nordic countries' education systems have held the interest of educators and policy makers globally for years. Scores of teachers, principals and legislators from the US and elsewhere have visited Finland in hopes of understanding what it is that Finland does that could be copied and applied at home to obtain similar results. This course explores the goals, structures, incentives, funding and results of various education systems, with a focus on the Finnish and American systems. Recognizing that education systems are complex, the aim is to understand what combination of factors (class sizes, funding, teacher training, teaching philosophy and methods, etc) are most conducive in terms of encouraging and educating the student population.

This course is designed to introduce students to the use of formal models to approach social science problems. Human action entails strategic action -- when people interact with each other, they make decisions about what to do based on what they think they other person(s) will do. Formal theory establishes a set of tools that allows us to understand how they make these decisions. This tool can be extended to understand more complex interactions, such as decision making in politics and economics.

North American Studies is a multidisciplinary program on comparative social institutions. The purpose of the introduction course is to familiarize students with the different approached and methods used to address the issue of social institutions in the fields of political science, economics, history, social policy and sociology. The lecture course is co-taught, with each field providing two lectures outlining their own approaches.

This course explores the use of econometrics in empirically answering questions about the efficacy of public policy. The course starts with a review of “statistical correlation” and proceeds to “cause and effect.” This narrowing of focus is essential for assessing policy impacts empirically, but is quite challenging to implement. This course builds a set of critical and practical econometric skills with which to evaluate whether correlation is likely to reflect causation.

Students often inquire about their statistics and economics preparation. To be sure, this course has a substantial mathematics/statistics component, but it is not a course in theoretical or applied statistics as a mathematics department would teach it. This course trains students in bridging the gap between statistics/mathematics and the economic behaviors they are supposed to represent. It is useful to think of statistics/mathematics as telling an abstract story about the policy environment, and human data telling a real story. Data are uninterpretable without the analytical abstraction, and the mathematics are not verifiable without the reality. But if the two can harmonize,
some very useful policy conclusions can potentially be drawn.

The framing of policy analysis in an economic context should not be confused with a focus on “economic policy” such as macroeconomics or finance. Economics provides a theory of human decision-making in the presence of general kinds of incentives, and most public policies alter the incentives (monetary or otherwise) of the governed. Topics to be explored this semester include the US housing market, healthcare provision, educator incentives, and Presidential elections.

To aj@bostian.us.com

This course examines the use of experiments to inform public policy. At its core, an experiment involves some kind of controlled, exogenous manipulation of an environment for the purpose of examining how people respond in different situations. The course begins with one of the smallest possible human manipulations: the presentation of different stimuli to the brain. This provides the neuroeconomic foundation of human choice, from which some policy conclusions can already be drawn. The course then moves up one macroeconomic level, examining laboratory experiments. These are more recognizable manipulations of incentives such as prices and costs, but in an artificial, controlled environment. Laboratory experiments are intended to provide arguments-by-analogy to real policy environments, which can be used to suggest policy effects. The course then proceeds to field experiments (or randomized controlled trials). There is less argument-by-analogy with field experiments, but generalization to other environments is usually difficult.

Students will apply the principles learned in the course by conducting a laboratory experiment of their choosing. This project will give students experience presenting evidence as a policy analyst might.

Examples of experiments that have been implemented for US policy analysis will be presented. Topics include health, employment, environment, and education. Students may also suggest topics of interest to them.