Description

For many social scientists, establishing causal relationships constitutes a core research objective. Yet, for all its scientific importance, causal inference presents social scientists with tremendous challenges to overcome. This specialized course will provide an overview of the various quantitative research designs that attempt to uncover causal relationships. The course combines theoretical discussions of the Potential Outcomes Framework and counterfactuals with concrete examples of different quantitative research designs. These include, amongst others, instrumental variable approaches, regression discontinuity designs, time-series regressions, and (quasi-) experiments.