PP455E      Half Unit
Empirical Methods for Public Policy

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

Requisites

Additional requisites:

There are no formal pre-requisites, but recommended advance readings will be distributed ahead of the course. Familiarity with the material covered in the EMPA/ EMPP Introduction to Statistics module is assumed.

The course introduces students to the quantitative evaluation of public policies. The focus of the course is on practical applications of techniques to test the effectiveness of public policy interventions. The course begins with an overview over the key benefits of randomized experiments in the evaluation of public policies. Next the course covers a number of techniques that are widely used in the evaluation of public policies, including difference-in-differences regressions, regression discontinuity approaches and matching. It concludes with an introduction to cost-benefit analysis.

30 hours of lectures in the Winter break.

A one-week modular teaching block. This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures delivered in one week.

The default mode of instruction is in-person in the classroom at LSE. Remote attendance is available in case of challenges preventing in-person attendance. 

One mock examination will be provided.

A full reading list will be distributed at the beginning of the course.

Essay (50%, 2000 words)

Short answer questions (50%)

Assessments for this course are an essay (50%) and an online assessment (50%). Online assessments take place on the third weekend after the module teaching concludes. The online assessment is available for 3 days and students have 3 hours 15 minutes to complete the assessment once they have started. Assessed essays are due on the sixth Sunday after module teaching concludes. Further details will be provided at the Executive MPA/ Executive MPP programme inductions.