Quantitative Methods for Public Management I

We live in an era of data-driven decision-making, and quantitative evidence is fundamental to inform sound governmental policies on both domestic and international issues. This course provides an introduction to quantitative methods for public policy, equipping students with fundamental skills to critically consume and analyze quantitative evidence in international development and security. Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to: (1) conduct basic descriptive inference, statistical inference, linear regression, and prediction, using the statistical software program R and, to some extent, MS Excel; and (2) explain the basics of causal inference, using causal diagrams, randomized experiments, and other quasi-experimental methods. [Syllabus]