Ex Post And Ex Ante Methods For Program Evaluation with Petra Todd (University of Pennsylvania)

Course Outline and Software

This course will examine econometric methods for evaluating effects of program interventions. Typical interventions that might be of interest include job training or other active labor market programs, education programs (such as school subsidy programs), or health programs. 

The first part of the course will examine ex post evaluation methods that are applicable after the program has been implemented and data are available on persons who participated in the program and possibly also on a group of people who did not participate.  We consider both the case where the program was randomly assigned and when assignment was not random.   We will examine methods that include regression estimators, matching estimators, control function estimators, regression discontinuity methods, IV and LATE estimators, and MTE estimators. 

The second part of the course will consider methods for ex ante evaluation, that is, methods for evaluating programs that do not yet exist or for evaluating alternative versions of existing programs.   These methods typically make more extensive use of structural models.  We will consider mainly static and dynamic discrete choice finite horizon models as frameworks for social policy evaluation. 

Instruction

Petra Todd is University Distinguished Professor of Economics at University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Todd is also a Research Associate of Penn’s Population Studies Center, NBER, and IZA.  She serves on the editorial board of the International Economic Review and the Econometrics Journal.  She is a fellow of the Econometrics Society and of the Society of Labor Economists (SOLE).   

Her main fields of research are social program evaluation, labor economics, and microeconometrics. She has published papers on econometric methods for evaluating the effects of program/policy interventions, the determinants of cognitive achievement, testing for discrimination in motor vehicle searches, sources of racial and gender labor market disparities, pension program design and on conditional cash transfer programs.

She is currently working on projects analyzing the effects of personality traits on gender labor market disparities, evaluating the effects of grade retention in Portugal, analyzing the effects of local minimum wage policies in the US, and analyzing the effects of a nationwide preschool reform in Mexico. 

Program

Ex post evaluation

Lecture 1: The evaluation problem, random assignment, regression estimators

Lecture 2:  Review of nonparametric methods (kernel density and regression estimators)

Lecture 3:  Matching, control function

Lecture 4:  IV, LATE and MTE, RD estimators

Ex ante evaluation

Lecture 5:  Use of static and dynamic discrete choice models for ex ante evaluation

Lecture 6:  Estimating DCDP models and examples

Research Seminar: To be announced

Entry Requirements

A graduate degree (MSc or PhD) in Economics, Management, Finance, Mathematics, Statistics, or closely related fields. We also welcome applications from qualified MSc students in these fields.

Please note that ECTS credits are not issued for this summer school.

Fees and Application deadline

The application deadline is June 24th, 2025; The early-bird discount applies to payments made on or before June1st, 2025.

Early registration: 650€                                                               Late registration: 800€

Students* (PhD, Master) early registration: 500€                     Students* (PhD, Master) late registration: 650€

A cancellation fee of 100 EUR is charged for cancellations until June 26th, 2025. No reimbursements will be made for cancellations after this date.

Fees cover attendance, lunches and two refreshments from Tuesday to Thursday (July 8–11), and a bus pass (provided upon registration) which allows you to use Braga’s public transport (TUB) at no cost during the summer school.

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