Course
Causal Inference in Empirical Economics - 4 ECTS
We, as human beings, tend to attribute cause and effect to observations quite quickly, even if such a causal relationship does not really exist. Causal inference is the science of the study of causal relationships and gives us tools to study rigorously if an intervention, action, or treatment causally determines a certain outcome. The importance of causal inference has been increasing, and in fact two recent Nobel prizes in Economics, in 2019, and in 2021, were awarded for methods to study causality.
Lecturers
Dr. Elena Fumagalli, Dr. Karlijn Morsink (both Utrecht University) and Dr. Mark Treurniet (University of Groningen)
Introduction
Causal inference is required to answer questions such as “What is the impact of social distancing on the spread of COVID-19?”, “What is the effect of minimum wages on employment?”, or “To what extent do increases in food prices increase conflict?” In this “Advanced Causal Inference” course five development economists from both Wageningen University (WUR) and Utrecht University (UU), will teach state-of-the-art causal inference methods for both experimental and quasi-experimental designs, and help students to apply these to their own research designs.
The course will be taught in hybrid form: each week there will be one physical lecture (either in Wageningen or in Utrecht) and the rest of the meetings will be online. Students that are staying abroad will be allowed to participate online if they participate actively.
Learning objectives
After successful completion of this course, participants are expected to be able to:
Use economic theory to design a (quasi) experiment
- Apply and evaluate statistical techniques in terms of valid causal inference
- Appraise various experimental design choices
- Appraise various quasi-experimental methods
- Practice with programming simulations
Course entry requirements
● DEC-32806 Impact Assessment of Policies and Programmes at WUR or ECRMRS1 Econometric Methods 1 at UU or a similar course at another university, and
● YSS-34306 Advanced Econometrics at WUR or ECRMRS1 Econometric methods 2 + Research skills: Data handling at UU or a similar course at another university, and
● Being able to program in Stata.
Activities
● Lectures: The course material will be discussed in fourteen interactive lectures.
● Assignments: Students will replicate some empirical results from highly-cited papers by implementing estimation procedures in Stata.
Feedback
● Question hours to discuss progress with Stata assignments.
● Weekly Q&A to help students with the material.
Examination
The student needs to pass each:
A. Three Stata assignments (pass/fail grading)
B. Written exam with open questions (minimum 5.5 to pass)
Tentative schedule
| Week 1: From theory to design | |||
| 6-9 | 9.30 | Lecture 1 | Karlijn |
| 7-9 | 9.30 | Lecture 2 | Karlijn |
| 8-9 | 9.30 | Q&A | Karlijn |
| Week 2: Causal inference in rondomized experiments | |||
| 12-9 | 9.30 | Lecture 3 | Mark |
| 13-9 | 9.30 | Question hour Stata assigment: Simulation | Mark |
| 14-9 | 9.30 | Lecture 4 | Mark |
| 15-9 | 9.30 | Q&A | Mark |
| Week 3: Avanced randomized designs | |||
| 19-9 | 9.30 | Lecture 5 | Maarten |
| 21-9 | 9.30 | Lecture 6 | Maarten |
| 22-9 | 9.30 | Q&A: Application to student's research design | Maarten |
| TBD | 9.30 | Deadline Stata Assignment 1: Simulation | |
| Week 4: Quasi-experimental methods I | |||
| 27-9 | 9.30 | Lecture 7 | Robert |
| 28-9 | 9.30 | Lecture 8 | Robert |
| 29-9 | 9.30 | Question hour Stata assignment: quasi | Robert |
| Day 3 | 9.30 | Q&A: Application to student's research design | Robert |
| Week 5: Quasi-experimental methods II | |||
| 4-10 | 9.30 | Lecture 9 | Elena |
| TBD | Deadline Stata Assignment 1: quasi | ||
| 5-10 | 9.30 | Lecture 10 | Elena |
| 6-10 | 9.30 | Q&A: Application to student's research design | Elena |
| Week 6: Power, ethics, and pre-analysis plans | |||
| 11-10 | 9.30 | Lecture 11 | Karlijn, Maarten |
| 13-10 | Question hour Stata assignment: Power | ||
| 12-10 | 9.30 | Lecture 12 | Karlijn, Maarten |
| 13-10 | 9.30 | Q&A: Application to student's research design | Karlijn, Maarten |
| Week 7: Self study | |||
| Deadline Stata Assignment 3: Power | Via Brightspace | ||
| 20-10 | 9.30 | Q&A Optional | Via Brightspace |
| Week 8: Exam | |||
| 24-10 | Take home-exam |
Please find more programme details and readings in the course outline.
Course fee
| WGS PhDs with TSP, UU PhDs, UG PhDs, WU MSc, UU MSc | € 0 |
| a) All other PhD candidates b) Postdocs and staff of the above mentioned Graduate Schools | € 650 |
| All others | € 975 |