Econ 628:
Topics in Applied Econometrics
Instructor: Thomas Lemieux
Class meetings: Tuesdays & Thursdays,
Office hours: Wednesday,
Course description
This goal of this course is to help students conduct independent empirical research. It would be beyond the scope of this course, however, to provide a comprehensive review of the set of tools available to empirical researchers. The course will rather cover a selected number of topics and papers to illustrate some basic principles of sound empirical research.
During most of the semester, I will present a number of empirical papers. During this period, each student will also have to choose on paper that she/he will present later in the semester.
In the second part of the semester, each class will start with a 30-45 minutes presentation by a student followed by a mix of class discussion and formal lecture by the instructor. Presentations by students serve a dual purpose. First, they make sure all students participate actively in class. Second, they guarantee that topics covered in class will be closer to the interests of students than if the instructor was to choose all the papers to be covered in class.
Finally, four empirical problem sets will be distributed throughout the semester.
Evaluation
Empirical problem sets: 30%
Class presentation: 30%
Final exam: 40%
Reading List
The reading list will evolve as we cover new topics suggested by students throughout the semester. The remainder of the syllabus lists a number of topics and papers that I will discuss during the first few weeks of class.
READING LIST
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
Angus Deaton and
John Muellbauer, Economics and Consumer Behaviour,
CONTROLLED EXPERIMENTS
Charles Michalopoulos, Philip K. Robins and David Card, “When financial work incentives pay for themselves: evidence from a randomized social experiment for welfare recipients,” Journal of Public Economics 29(1), January 2005, 5-29
Micheal Kremer and Edward Miguel “Worms: Identifying
Impacts on Education and Health in the Presence of Treatment Externalities,"
Econometrica, 2004, 72 (1), 159-217
NATURAL EXPERIMENTS, INSTRUMENTAL VARIABLES, DIFFERENCE-IN-DIFFERENCES
Joshua Angrist, “Lifetime Earnings and the Vietnam Era Draft Lottery: Evidence from Social Security Administrative Records,” American Economic Review 80(3), June 1990, 313-36
Chang-Tai Hsieh, “Do Consumers React to Anticipated Income Changes? Evidence from the Alaska Permanent Fund?” American Economic Review 93(1), March 2003, 397-405
Phil Oreopoulos
"Do
Dropouts Drop Out Too Soon? Evidence From Changes in School-Leaving Laws"
Angrist, Joshua D., and Alan Krueger. “Does Compulsory School Attendance Affect Schooling and Earnings?” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 106, No. 4, pp. 979, 1014, 1991
Duflo, Esther, Sendhil Mullainathan, and Marianne Bertrand “How Much Should We Trust Difference in Differences Estimates?”, Quarterly Journal of Economics 119(1), February 2004, pp. 249-275.
Andrews, Donald, and James Stock, “Inference with Weak Instruments”,
NBER Technical Working Paper No. 313, August 2005
MATCHING AND PROPENSITY SCORE ESTIMATION
Dehejia, R., Wahba, S. 1999. “Causal effects in noexperimental studies: Reevaluating the evaluation of training programs,” Journal of the American Statistical Association 94(448), 1053-1062.
Smith, Jeffrey and
( http://www.glue.umd.edu/~jsmithz/papers/nsw_061303_double.pdf )
Imbens, Guido, “Nonparametric Estimation of Average Treatment Effects under Exogeneity: A Review” Review of Economics and Statistics 86(1), February 2004, 4-29.
LOCAL AVERAGE TREATMENT EFFECT
Joshua Angrist and Guido Imbens, "Identification and Estimation of Local Average Treatment Effects," Econometrica, March 1994.
GENERAL EQUILIBRIUM EFFECTS?
Lise, Jeremy, Shannon Seitz and Jeffrey Smith. 2004.
“Equilibrium Policy Experiments and the Evaluation of Social Programs,
( http://www.glue.umd.edu/~jsmithz/papers/ssp15.pdf )
Marco Bianchi, Björn R. Gudmundsson, and Gylfi Zoega, “Iceland’s Natural Experiment in Supply-Side Economics,” American Economic Review 91(5), December 2001, 1564-79
James J. Heckman;
Lance Lochner; Christopher Taber, “General-Equilibrium
Treatment Effects: A Study of Tuition Policy, American Economic Review
88(2), May 1998, 381-386.
REGRESSION DISCONTINUITY
David
Lee, “The Electoral Advantage to Incumbency and Voters' Valuation of
Politicians' Experience: A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of Elections to
the
Thomas Lemieux and Kevin Milligan, “Incentive Effects of Social Assistance: A Regression Discontinuity Approach,” unpublished manuscript, NBER Working Paper No 10514, June 2004.
STRUCTURAL ESTIMATION
Equilibrium, Econometrica 63(4), July 1995, 841-890
David Card and Thomas Lemieux, “Can Falling Supply Explain the Rising Return to College for Younger Men? A Cohort-Based Analysis” Quarterly Journal of Economics 116, May 2001, pp. 705-46.
Michael
Baker and Gary Solon, “Earnings Dynamics and Inequality among Canadian Men,
1976-1992: Evidence from Longitudinal Income Tax Records,” Journal of Labor
Economics, 2003, vol. 21, issue 2, pages
267-288
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