Applied Inferential Statistics for Policy Analysis

1 credits · Graduate

There is increasing emphasis throughout the public and non-profit sectors to invest in practices that are “evidence based". In this course, we are going to study the role of empirical research in public decision making and the common research strategies employed to study problems of causal inference and prediction. The effectiveness of specific intervention often relies on research attempting to demonstrate that one variable (for example, a particular educational intervention) has a causal effect on an outcome of interest (for example, successful completion of high school). We will study the various research strategies that are employed to uncover causal effects and to evaluate the effects of programmatic interventions.