Class 1: Introduction and Setup

Today we’ll motivate the study of causal inference and go over the details of the course

Readings and other links

• Review the syllabus, schedule, content, and assignments pages for this class…just to get a feel for the site and how to navigate all of the information.
• Materials we’ll use throughout this module:
  • Lesson 2 from Data Science for Economists. This is part of a course from Grant McDermott with a ton of great online resources.
  • R for Data Science
  • Understand filepaths. Short video from Nick Huntington-Klein.
  • Chapter 5 of Causal Inference: The Mixtape
  • Chapter 14 of The Effect: An Introduction to Research Design and Causality
• Data for this module:
  • Data from Gapminder
  • Medicare Advantage repository

For next class

This semester we are fortunate to have access to high-powered computing services within Emory. This will greatly simplify our software setups and avoid many idiosyncracies associated with installaion errors across different computers. Instructions for accessing these resources is on Canvas. Before next class, please be sure that you can access your online Jupyter Notebook and that you’ve properly synced/authenticated your GitHub account.