The purpose of this course is to provide a review of modern econometric tools that economists and other social scientist use to estimate causal impacts of policies on economic outcomes. The course starts with theoretical material covering these techniques, which is presented in a fairly non-technical manner. The second part of the course consists of guest lectures by leading Finnish scholars. They will present how modern economics research and econometrics has been used in the analysis of effectiveness of a wide range of different economic policies.

The aim of the course is to equip the students with capabilities to understand applied economic policy research, as being done by academics and economists in research institutes alike, and give the basics for apply the tools themselves in their research.  The visiting lectures provide state of the art knowledge on the particular fields in economic analysis and examples of applying econometric tools in practice.

The main textbook for the first part of the course is Joshua D. Angrist & Jörn-Steffen Pischke (2014) “Mastering 'Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect”, Princeton University Press.  The required reading list also contains selected articles and book chapters by the visiting lecturers.

There will be an exam in the end of the course that will focus especially on applying the taught material on new research questions.

Enrolment key to course Moodle page: Causality

Detailed Lecture Schedule

Exam dates
1st course exam: Mon May 16 at 12-16 in Pinni B3107 (no need to sign up)
1st retake: Tue June 7 at 12-16 in main building D10a+b, sign up at least 7 days before the exam at NettiOpsu
2nd retake: Mon September 12 at 8-12 in main building D10a+b