PubAffr 819: Advanced Statistical Methods for Public Policy Analysis
This site provides additional resources for students in PubAffr 819 at the University of Wisconsin, Madison for Spring 2020 Semester (restricted materials at canvas.wisc.edu)
Parting Advice: Never generate a graph like this, and circulate.
Source: Council of Economic Advisers.
Syllabus |
Important Dates |
Downloadable Course Materials and Information Sources |
Robert M. LaFollette School of Public Affairs |
Department of Economics
LECTURE: MW 3:30-4:45, Social Sciences 6203
SECTION: TH 8:50AM-9:40AM Sterling 2335
SECTION: TH 9:55AM-10:45AM Sterling 2335
SECTION: TH 11:00AM-11:50AM Van Vleck B231
Instructor
Professor Menzie Chinn
Office Hours: MW 2-3 (until 3/9, TBA thereafter)
7418 Social Sciences
Tel: (608) 262-7397
email: mchinn [at] lafollette.wisc.edu
Home Page
Teaching Assistant
Hyunseok Kim
Office Hours: F 9:30-12:30
Taylor Hall 319
hkim659 [at] wisc.edu
PA819 Syllabus in PDF file.
The purpose of this course is to equip students with the tools necessary to tackle issues that involve the empirical analysis of public policy problems of the sort they might encounter in a professional environment. Specifically, the course introduces students to the use of multiple regression analysis for analyzing data. The emphasis is on empirical applications.
The course is designed with twin objectives in mind. The first is to provide students with the ability to analyze critically empirical analysis done by others at a level sufficient to make intelligent decisions about how to use that analysis in the design of public policy. The second is to provide students with the skills necessary to perform empirical policy analysis on their own or to participate on a team involved in such an empirical analysis. An important segment of the course focuses on program evaluation. This includes both the design and analysis of experiments that aim at measuring policy effectiveness and the use of non-experimental data to evaluate policy effectiveness.
Requisites: Public Affairs 818 and 880.
The required textbook (also available at the UW Bookstore), is:
- Stock, J. and Watson, M., Introduction to Econometrics, 3rd edition Update. Addison-Wesley (2010) [low res version]
Additional assigned readings will be available on the Web (via links on this website). Required Readings
Midterm 1, 3/23 3/25
Midterm 2, 4/29
Presentations of Final Exercise, 4/22 Project Memo due, Friday 4/24. 
Downloadable Course Materials
- Krueger Krueger, Alan (1999), "Experimental Estimates of Educational Production Functions," Quarterly Journal of Economics 114(2), pp.497-532.
- CK David Card, Alan B. Krueger (1994) "Minimum Wages and Employment," The American Economic Review 84(4), pp. 772-793. [link]
Useful websites
Additional Readings
The minimum wage/natural experiment debate
- David Card, Alan B. Krueger (1994) "Minimum Wages and Employment," The American Economic Review 84(4), pp. 772-793. [link]
- David Neumark, William Wascher (2000) Minimum Wages and Employment: Comment," The American Economic Review 90(5), pp. 1362-1396. [link]
- David Card, Alan B. Krueger (2000) "Minimum Wages and Employment: Reply," The American Economic Review 90(5), pp. 1397-1420. [link]
Covid-19
- Ma, Chang and Rogers, John H. and Zhou, Sili, Global Economic and Financial Effects of 21st Century Pandemics and Epidemics (March 30, 2020).
- IHME Covid-19 projections Updated daily.
- IHME COVID-19 health service utilization forecasting team, "Forecasting COVID-19 impact on hospital bed-days, ICU-days, ventilatordays and deaths by US state in the next 4 months," Medrxiv preprint (March 26, 2020)
- Malata, "Covid-19 infection in Italy: Mathematical models and predictions," Towards Data Science, March 8, 2020
Miscellaneous
Weblogs
Databases
- St. Louis Fed economic database Thousands of time series on economic activity, in an easily downloadable form.
- NBER Data Specialized economic databases created by economists associated with the National Bureau of Economic Research.
- DBnomics provides a gateway to several European websites.
- IMF World Economic Outlook October 2019 database (annual)
- IMF International Financial Statistics (monthly, quarterly, annual)
- Bureau of Economic Analysis, Dept. of Commerce Data on GDP and components (the national income and product accounts) as well as other macroeconomic data.
- Bureau of the Census, Dept. of Commerce Data on the characteristics of the US population as well as of US firms.
- Bureau of Labor Statistics, Dept. of Labor Data on wages, prices, productivity, and employment and unemployment rates.
- Energy Information Agency, Dept. of Energy Data on energy (electricity, gas, petroleum) production, consumption and prices.
- Penn World Tables Annual GDP and other data for over a hundred countries, expressed
in dollars, after adjusting for differing price levels.
- Robert Shiller historical stock data
PA819 Advanced Statistical Methods for Public Policy Analysis/ UW Madison / mchinn [at] lafollette.wisc.edu / 6 May 2020