Programa

Policy Evaluation

Licenciatura Bolonha em Economia

Licenciatura Bolonha em Finanças

Licenciatura Bolonha em Gestão

Licenciatura Bolonha em Matemática Aplicada à Economia e à Gestão

Programa

- Topic 1 (Classes 1 and 2): Part I: Why are Big Data and administrative micro-data transforming the evaluation of public policies? The importance of doing evaluation. The differences between monitoring and conducting proper impact evaluation. Introduction to the Experimental Methodology and to Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs). Part II: Basic concepts in experimental design and procedures to consider in the implementation. Using RCTs to study perceptions, knowledge and beliefs, attitudes, and reasoning. Problems and limitations of this method. - Topic 2 (Classes 3 and 4): What to do when randomization is not possible or ethically acceptable? Difference-in-differences (DiD): Introduction, Main assumptions, Staggered interventions. Running examples: The importance of geographical context (Place-based policies); the child penalty. - Topic 3 (Class 5): Introduction to Regression Discontinuity Designs. Main assumptions. Running examples: Impact of attending elite universities; public policies and political support. - Topic 4 (Class 6): Saliency, enforcement, incidence, and asymmetry issues when designing public policy. - Topic 5 (Class 7): Introduction to Synthetic Control Methods and Synthetic DiD. Running examples: How can taxes and other public policies be designed and implemented to discourage socially harmful behaviours and negative externalities such as pollution? Pigouvian taxes and sin taxes. - Topic 6 (Class 8): Part I: Bunching. Running example: Taxes on labor. Part II: Behavioral responses to taxation: evasion and migration. Taxes on capital. - Topic 7 (Classes 9 and 10): Introduction to machine learning. Running example: Can computer assistance improve judicial decisions? Will these decisions be fairer, or do they raise technical and ethical issues? - Topic 8 (Classes 11 and 12): Essay presentations (research design)