Introductory description

This is a research-led module and will give students an insight into how economists evaluate policy implementation. The module begins with a review of the evaluation problem and discusses methods that are used to evaluate the outcomes of various interventions. The substantive portion of the module will take a series of recent research papers which are evaluating a policy that has been implemented and explain how the authors used appropriate statistical techniques in order evaluate the policy.

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Week 1 (2 hours Lecture)
Topic: Introduction to the evaluation problem.

Objective: This session will discuss the need for monitoring and evaluation, key concepts of monitoring and evaluation (causality, identification problems, selection on observable and unobservable characteristics), various elements that comprise a sound impact evaluation, data collection strategies, difficulties and limitations.

Week 2-10 (18 hours total)
Topic: Identifying the impact of an intervention

Objective: Within these eight weeks the lectures will take recent policy evaluation research papers and discuss the approach the papers took in order to evaluate the impact of the policy intervention and discuss the relative merits of alternative approaches. The approaches used for policy evaluation will include instrumental variables, differences-in-differences, matching methods, regression discontinuity design, synthetic control methods and randomized control trials, endogenous switching regression models, heterogeneous treatment effect models, Quantile Treatment Effect and event studies.
Students will also be taught to how to implement some of these procedures within appropriate statistical packages, such as STATA.

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Understand published empirical papers focused on policy evaluation.
• Demonstrate the ability to appreciate and implement empirical research using suitable techniques.
• Have developed the skills needed to understand, conduct and present empirical research related to policy evaluation.

Indicative reading list

Reading lists can be found in Talis

Research element

Apply critical econometric analysis to a policy, formulate concepts and hypotheses, and show how they are tested in the relevant policy context.

Interdisciplinary

The specific econometric skills concerning policy evaluation can also be extended beyond the economics discipline. Particularly, this module heavily interacts with policy evaluation's political and sociological aspects.

International

As a policy evaluation module, this module will introduce a whole host of public and social policies and their impact from different parts of the world, more particularly from the global South.

Subject specific skills

By the end of the course students will be equipped with the necessary methodological skills required to analyse any policy evaluation.

Transferable skills

Understand published empirical papers. Gain the ability to conduct empirical research using (modern) econometric techniques. Gain skills
i) in the use of computer software, including statistical software;
(ii) describe data and present it in a meaningful manner.
(iii) conduct individual research and investigate topics under their own initiative;
(iv) present their research to an audience;
(v) present their research conclusions in a written form.