Economics 312, Empirical Analysis III
Spring 2021; Part B, Problem Sets
Teaching Assistant Information
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- Ana Vasilj (avasilj0810@gmail.com)
- Office hours: Wednesdays, 9am – 10am
- Samuel Higbee (samuelhigbee@uchicago.edu)
- Office hours: Mondays, 4:30pm – 5:30pm
- TA Sessions: Friday, 4:10pm – 5:10pm
- NOTE: Please email the TAs if you plan to attend their Office Hours so that they do not wait unnecessarily. Please email them before office hours with any specific questions so that they can prepare.
- Ana Vasilj (avasilj0810@gmail.com)
Rules for Problem Sets
For the problem sets in Part B of the course, you may form groups of up to 3 people, maximum, with no exceptions. Please upload an electronic version to Canvas (no late submissions are accepted) before the deadline, with one submission per group. Please label the submission clearly with the full name of each student in the group as it is written on Canvas. Note that groups consisting of more than 3 members will earn a mark of 0.
Homework groups
- You must form a homework group consisting of three people – no exceptions.
- Study groups are permanent for the rest of ECON 312 (specifically for Part B).
- Please send the list of people with your names as seen on Canvas to the TAs by Friday, April 30.
Submission
- We will set up groups on Canvas so that you will be able to submit the solution as a group.
- Please include everyone’s names in the submitted document.
- The deadline for each assignment is the start of the lecture on the day that the problem set is due (5 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays unless otherwise stated).
- The documents containing the write-up (including but not limited to paragraph answers, equations, graphs, plots, diagrams, tables) must be in PDF format and you are strongly encouraged to use LaTeX to typeset your solutions. A collaborative platform like Overleaf would be useful.
- Please submit your code along with the write-up: both the source file(s) and the PDF version of the code if possible. Platforms like RMarkdown (for R), Jupyter (for Python and R) and MATLAB live scripts can be especially useful to include equations and text in Markdown cells alongside code blocks.
- The code must be well-formatted, with comments and well-labeled variable names as appropriate.
Problem Sets
Problem Set 1
- Assigned: April 29, 2021
- Due: May 4, 2021
- Related Resources:
- Feynman, R. (1981). Excerpt on the social sciences from “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out”. BBC Horizon Interview. Season 18, Episode 9. Aired November 23, 1981.
- Christensen, Garret, and Edward Miguel. (2018). “Transparency, Reproducibility, and the Credibility of Economics Research.” Journal of Economic Literature, 56(3):920-80.
- Friedman, Milton (1957). Theory of the Consumption Function. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Heckman, James J. (2008). “Econometric Causality,” International Statistical Review, 76(1): 1-27
- Heckman, James J., Sergio Urzua, and Edward Vytlacil. (2006). “Understanding Instrumental Variables in Models with Essential Heterogeneity.” The Review of Economics and Statistics, 88(3):389-432.
- Hurwicz, L. (1962). “On the structural form of interdependent systems.” In E. Nagel, P. Suppes, and A. Tarski (Eds.), Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science, pp. 232-239. Stanford University Press.
Problem Set 2
- Assigned: May 4, 2021
- Due: May 11, 2021
- Related Resources
- Heckman, James J. and Vytlacil, Edward J. (2007). “Econometric Evaluation of Social Programs, Part II: Using the Marginal Treatment Effect to Organize Alternative Economic Estimators to Evaluate Social Programs and to Forecast Their Effects in New Environments,” in Handbook of Econometrics, Vol. 6B, J. Heckman and E. Leamer, eds. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 4875-5144.
- Heckman, James J. and Vytlacil, Edward J. (2007). “Econometric Evaluation of Social Programs, Part I: Causal Models, Structural Models and Econometric Policy Evaluation,” in Handbook of Econometrics, Vol. 6B, J. Heckman and E. Leamer, eds. Amsterdam: Elsevier. pp. 4779-4874.
- Datasets
- Datasets for Problem Set 2 (.zip file)
Problem Set 3
- Assigned: May 11, 2021
- Due: May 18, 2021
- Related Resources
- Frisch, Ragnar. (1938). “Statistical versus Theoretical Relations in Economic Macrodynamics,” Memorandum prepared for the Business Cycle Conference at Cambridge, England. July 18-20, 1938 to discuss Professor J. Tinbergen’s publications of 1938 for the League of Nations. In Memorandum of the University Institute of Social Economy: Autonomy of Economic Relations. R. Frisch, T. Haavelmo, T. C. Koopmans, and J. Tinbergen, eds. Norway: Oslo.
Problem Set 4
- Assigned: May 18, 2021
- Due: May 25, 2021
- Related Resources
- Heckman, James J., Sergio Urzua, and Edward Vytlacil. (2006). “Understanding Instrumental Variables in Models with Essential Heterogeneity.” The Review of Economics and Statistics, 88(3):389-432.
- Discrete Time Panel Data Methods
- Data
Final Exam
- Assigned: May 27, 2021
- Due: June 8, 2021
- Rules:
- Related Resources
- Browning, Martin, Lars Peter Hansen, and James J. Heckman. (1999). “Micro Data and General Equilibrium Models.” In Handbook of Macroeconomics, edited by John B. Taylor and Michael Woodford, 543-633. Elsevier B. V.
- Data