Causal Inference

This course is an introduction to Causal Inference at the masters and advanced undergraduate level. Students will be introduced to a broad range of causal inference methods including randomized experiments, observational studies, instrumental variables, di?erence-in-di?erences, regression discontinuity design, and synthetic controls. In addition, the course will cover modern, controversial debates regarding the foundations and limitations of causal inference. The primary learning goal of this course will be to familiarize students with a variety of the most popular causal inference methods: which causal e?ects they seek to estimate, basic assumptions required for identi?cation and estimation, and their practical implementation. To this end, the course will focus both on developing the pre-requisite statistical / methodological theory and as well as gaining hands-on experience through implementation exercises with real datasets. By the end of the course, students should have deep familiarity of various causal inference methods and—more importantly—be able to determine which method is most appropriate for a given applied problem and to judge whether the pre-requisite identifying conditions are appropriate.