API 6322 Doing Data-based Projects
3 units
Public and International Affairs
Faculty of Social Sciences
This course introduces students to the art, practice, and excitement of searching, visualizing, and manipulating data to analyze economic, social, and policy issues. It has a set of empirical projects based on publicly available and carefully curated data. It gives students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with real-world data in areas of pressing importance to contemporary societies (e.g., inequality, well-being, public goods and the ‘tragedy of the commons’, climate change, public health issues –e.g., diabetes, or pandemics, measuring the cost of unemployment, comparing banking systems or management practices around the world, etc.). Each project takes students on a step-by-step journey of investigation using easily-available software. Two tracks are available—using a spreadsheet application (e.g., Excel, Google sheets) or a (freely available) programming language (e.g., R and/or Python) depending on the student’s level and interest. This course is neither a ‘formal’ statistical course nor an economic ‘theory’ course. This course is a complement to formal courses in these fields.
Components:
Seminar
Previously Offered Terms:
Summer
French Equivalent:
Organized
14 responses
4.43
/ 5
Clear Expectations
15 responses
4.20
/ 5
Learned a Lot
15 responses
4.53
/ 5
Fair Assessments
15 responses