The objective of the course is for students to develop critical evaluation of real-world developments and policies by dealing with the main macroeconomic accounts: the national income, the balance sheets and flow accounts of the government, the central bank, the banking sector, and the country as a whole in its transactions with the rest of the world. At the end of the course, students should be able to evaluate the assumptions and contingencies on which various policy positions are founded, and the strengths and weaknesses of alternative prescriptions. The class will discuss theory and empirics, and will often rely on publicly available datasets, with regular assignments in Python. Basic knowledge of math is needed.

This is the first course in a sequence of 2 course, allong with Game Theory and Information Economics, that endows students with the basic insights of microeconomi theory. The goal of the course is to introduce students into the way economists see human interactions in markets, with markets broadly defined as places where economic activity takes place. The provided body of knowledge will allow student to understand how demand and supply interact in markets and welfare properties of the outcomes of the interactions.

This is the first course in the statistics sequence for the first year of the master's program. Its objective is to expose students to statistics and data science primarily from a practical perspective. While we will cover econometric theory as necessary, the focus will largely be on application. The goal of the course is to be as applied as possible, with students frequently engaging in programming exercises, preparing them for their own research projects and careers as applied economists.

This course is the second part of the applied macro sequence. We will study topics that currently interest economists and policy makers. We will study review articles on the topics and the related models and data analysis. One half of classes will consist of me covering the contents of the papers including the discussion of your questions. I encourage you to read the relevant papers in advance and to prepare a short question for each class. The other half of classes will consist of your presentations of papers and possibly other materials.

This is the second course in the microeconomics sequence and it builds heavily on the first course on microeconomics I. More specifically, the accent will be on a bit more rigours and more general treatment of monopoly, game theory and imperfect competition. Finally, (time permitting) we will study the basic ideas of asymmetric information, moral hazard and contracts. Some of the lecture materials will be presented by the students during the seminars. The structure of the course will be (roughly) equally divided between the lectures and student seminars and presentations. There will be also an exercise session per week. The objective of the sequence in general and of the course in particular is to i) provide students with firm knowledge of the basic microeconomic theory, ii) provide students with grasp of relevant (micro)economic concepts on intuitive and formal level and iii) equip students with tools and techniques allowing them to conduct their own independent research.

This is the introductory course in econometrics. The objective is to give students an opportunity to understand the econometric theory and explore various practical econometric applications, including data management. It builds on the material covered in Statistics and extends it into regression-type models. Students will make regular use of computers. We will use STATA and R (or another econometric packet) for certain problem sets. Some supplementary exercises – data management (using databases [MS Access], using spreadsheets [MS Excel], R or STATA will be prepared if needed. If required by students, optional computer sessions will be provided. As it is standard for introductory econometrics, the core of the course will deal with regression models and their variations. We will spend several lectures on testing linear and non-linear hypotheses, identification issues, and appropriate use of instrumental variable estimation. If time permits, we will cover additional topics like binary type models, bootstrapping, and introduction to time series and linear regression models with panel data.

This course is the first step in professional level writing in Economics in English. We focus on ways that writing in this broad genre differs from other types of writing. Students will practice their analytical writing skills in formal, post-graduate level English. There is an emphasis on academic integrity, and the types of grammatical structures and language used in a variety of professional texts in the field. The course includes lectures, peer input on the main tasks throughout development of the work, and individual consultations with the instructor. Extensive written feedback is given with a view to supporting future work.
The main tasks are an NGO-style position paper and presentation of the paper. The paper should be relevant to the student’s planned MA thesis and its text should be transferable to the Topic Request Submission. Students choose topics that reflect their personal interests in the field. The skills practiced on this course are designed to support student writing and speaking throughout their studies and beyond into real-world contexts.

This is a graduate-level course on selected approaches in so-called “structural” econometric estimation, with emphasis on methods originally devised in industrial organization, but applicable also in different fields. Following a review of some key econometric concepts and tools, the course overviews the main econometric approaches adopted in selected areas of industrial organization, such as the estimation of demand and production functions, the analysis of strategic interactions, and spillover effects.

This is a second-year graduate level course. The course is based on selected and (mostly) recent empirical research papers focusing on particular aspects of the economic history of the United States, paying particular attention to the topics of internal and international migration, cities, innovation, and culture. Beyond providing students with an in-depth understanding of the research frontier in the field of US economic history, the course will focus on developing skills in developing, communicating, presenting, and evaluating research ideas and causal research designs in applied economics more broadly. This course is the first of a two-course sequence, and a pre-requisite for taking “Economic History II” (Ch. Ochsner) in the next spring semester.

The course will provide fundamental understanding of stylized labor supply and demand in their static and advanced versions, and associated models of wage determination. The course will combine theoretical concepts, empirical evidence and empirical methods including use of econometrics and individual level data. Policy and mechanism designs debates involving students will be encouraged. The course has three major goals (i) to guide students through current theoretical and empirical understanding of major labor market issues, (ii) to promote student’s own empirical research on topic selected, (iii) to make students familiar with stylized research resources, field standards and approaches. Throughout the topics, empirical methodological approaches will be clarified (data and econometric / identification techniques).

The emphasis of the course is twofold: (i) to extend regression models in the context of cross-section and panel data analysis, (ii) to focus on situations where liner regression models are not appropriate and to study alternative methods. The course prepares you to discuss the estimation of causal parameters and program evaluation and to consider parameter heterogeneity in the second part of the sequence. Examples of applied work will be used throughout the course.

This course is the second step in student’s ongoing practice of their professional communications skills in the broad field of economics. It includes written tasks, a negotiation, and presentations, and continues the collaborative features of Research Writing. Lectures, discussions, teamwork, and individual consultations with the instructor are aimed to continue to build student’s skills and confidence, and to provide useful take-aways for real-world endeavors. The skills practiced on this course are designed to support student writing and speaking throughout their studies and beyond into real-world contexts.

The main topics of the class are econometric approaches to the problem of sample selection and (individual) heterogeneity. While the methods apply more generally, the class will focus on methods to address the selection problem from the program evaluation literature and place particular emphasis on heterogeneity in randomized control trials in the second part of the course.

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The aim of this course is to bring students to the research frontier in the field of applied economic research with a special emphasis on quantitative economic history and long-run development. Students will get a broad overview of economic history based on notes provided by the instructor and a deep understanding of the recent literature in the respective fields. Thereby, students should become critical about empirical identification strategies and should learn how to frame and sell a story. We will mainly discuss empirical settings that apply concepts of causal inference following “Mostly Harmless Econometrics” by Angrist and Pischke (2010). The course also consists of Stata assignments in which students will challenge published papers with newly established methodological contributions in the econometric literature. At the end, students have to write their own short research proposal in the field of quantitative economic history.

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The Master Thesis Seminar opens with a plenary session, and provides individualized support for students developing a Thesis. Peers and the instructor will offer feedback on the language and organization of the work via a collaborative framework. The instructor will also offer a series of individualized consultations in the final stages of the thesis.