1 Introduction

3 Sep 2025

In this advanced statistics course, you’ll gain a key skill: estimating causal effects. This is the next step after the complex mathematical concepts from last semester and will help you answer meaningful questions about the world.

We’ll investigate fascinating topics, such as the effect of anomie on suicide rates and the relationship between policing and domestic violence.

This course will connect the dots between your previous classes. We will combine your knowledge from research design and basic statistics, add new analytical tools, and explore the methods researchers use to address questions that resonate with all of us.

Lecture 1 slides

Readings

  1. Angrist and Pischke (2014, Introduction XI-XV) &
  2. Johnson et al.’s The Atlantic article The Accidental Experiment That Changed Men’s Lives; Don’t get hung up on them talking about Economics. Simply replace it with Sociology in your mind.

References

Angrist, Joshua D., and Jörn-Steffen Pischke. 2014. Mastering ’Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect. Princeton University Press.