NEW: Economics 190: Research with Economics Data

This course was first taught in Fall 2023. It will most likely be taught in Fall 2024.

The goal of this new course is for students to write a research paper based on analysis of economics data.

As background the class will go through several published papers and several econometrics methods.

The key component of this class is the research paper which will be a group project (2-4 students per paper depending on class size).
Additionally there will be a final examination.

Assesment will be Attendance (5%), Assignments (30%), Midterm Exam (15%), Project interim (10%), Project Presentation (10%), Project final (30%).

Teaching will use Stata. Projects can use Stata, R or Python.

Prerequisite

The key requirement is a good understanding of linear regression.
At a minimum one should have done Economics 102
or (better still) Economics 140 with a grade of B or better.
Enrollment is capped at 30 students.

The course is intended for Economics majors, and first pass is restricted to Economics majors.
Should there still be room after first pass I will consider Students who have taken STA 108 with a grade of B- or better or ARE 106 with a grade of B- or better, provided they have also taken basic courses in ECN or ARE.

Syllabus

The syllabus below is for Fall 2023, the first time the class was taught.
In Fall 2024 the course will have some changes. It will have more on how to structure a research paper, what parts of data analysis to include in the paper, how to import statistical output into tables from a paper. It will go through more examples of research papers. There coverage of causal methods will focus on the most commonly-used methods.  


A. Colin Cameron / UC-Davis Economics / http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/cameron