Prof Sandra Sequeira

This course is available on the Double Master of Public Administration (LSE-Columbia), Double Master of Public Administration (LSE-University of Toronto), Master of Public Administration, MPA Dual Degree (LSE and Hertie), MPA Dual Degree (LSE and NUS), MPA Dual Degree (LSE and Tokyo) and MPA in Data Science for Public Policy. This course is not available as an outside option to students on other programmes. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

For MPA Year 1 students, MPA in Data Science for Public Policy Year 1 students, and MPA Double Degree first year students. Course not available as outside option.

This course is only compulsory for students who demonstrate sufficient prior knowledge of Econometrics to be exempt from the first half of PP455 in Autumn Term.

Deadline for application: 12 noon on the Friday before the start of Autumn Term.

For queries contact: mpa@lse.ac.uk

Mutually exclusive courses:

This course cannot be taken with PP455 at any time on the same degree programme.

The course introduces students to a number of regression-based, quantitative evaluation methods to assess the causal impact of policy interventions. These include randomized control trials, both natural or quasi-experiments, panel data, matching methods, difference-in-differences estimation, instrumental variables, and regression discontinuity design.

15 hours of seminars and 20 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.

This course is delivered through a combination of lectures and classes totalling a minimum of 30 hours across the Winter Term. 

There will be a revision session held in Week 1 of ST. 

Formative coursework will include weekly problem sets

Particularly useful textbooks are Joshua D. Angrist and Jom-Steffen Pischke, "Mastering Metrics"; James Stock & Mark Watson, "Introduction to Econometrics"; and Jeffrey Wooldridge, "Introductory Econometrics". The material in the textbooks will be complemented with some recent published articles. A complementary text, also available in an online version, is Scott Cunningham's "Casual Inference: The Mixtape." This is a good reference to gain intuition about some of the core causal methods we will study. A full reading list will be distributed at the beginning of the course.

Exam (70%), duration: 180 Minutes, reading time: 15 minutes in the Spring exam period.

Presentation (10%).

This component of assessment includes an element of group work.

Continuous assessment (10%).

Memo (10%).