Lectures: Mondays, Wednesdays, 11:00 am-12:15 pm, McClelland 401KK.
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 2:00-3:30 pm, or by appointment.
Course Description
This is a Ph.D. level topics course in causal inference and program evaluation methodology. We will focus on using the potential outcomes approach as a general organizing principle, and examine identification and estimation of treatment effects under various types of assumptions. A key theme is to show that certain treatment effects are identified under weak distributional assumptions (nonparametric identification), and then examine a range of estimation methods that incorporate additional "smoothing" assumptions.
Handouts
- Syllabus (1/9/12): PDF
- Lecture Note 1: PDF
- Lecture Note 2: PDF
- Lecture Note 3: PDF
- Lecture Note 4: PDF
- Lecture Note 5: PDF
- Lecture Note 6: PDF
- Lecture Note 7: PDF
- Lecture Note 8: PDF
- Lecture Note 9: PDF
- Lecture Note 10: PDF
- Lecture Note 11: PDF
- Lecture Note 12: PDF
- Lecture Note 13: PDF
- Lecture Note 14: PDF
- Lecture Note 15: PDF
Assignments
- Homework 1, due Friday, Feb 10:
- Homework 2, due Friday, March 2: PDF (REVISED 2/25/11)
- Minipaper Instructions: PDF
- Homework 3, due Monday, April 9:
Note to students:
If you wish to meet with me, the best way is to set up an appointment by email.
Contact:
Department of Economics
University of Arizona
401 McClelland Hall
1130 E. Helen Street
Tucson, AZ 85721-0108
tel: 520-621-6065
fax: 520-621-8450
email: hirano@u.arizona.edu