Causal inference and policy evaluation

The main objective of this course is to introduce students to the concepts of causality and counterfactual impact evaluation (CIE). After a statistical introduction to the most popular methods used to assess causality (such as instrumental variables, difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity design, randomized control trials), their application will be illustrated through examples of causal inference and policy evaluation in several domains of applied economics, such as labor, education and health economics.

After the completion of the course students must be able: 1) to read and understand the specialized literature using causal inference; 2) facing a problem of causal inference, to understand the complexities involved and to carefully design research strategies to estimate causality and evaluate policies; 3) to carry out policy evaluations in most fields of applied economics, to write a report (or paper) explaining the results, and to present them to both an academic and a general audience.