HMET4220 ¨C Applied Micro Econometrics

Course content

The course will provide students with a theoretical background and practical experience in different methods to estimate effects of health interventions or policy interventions. Students will also learn how to design interventions and conduct experiments to measure causal effects. Special emphasis will be placed on the distinction between estimating treatment effects based on experimental data versus observational data, and how to deal with selection and information bias in observational data

Learning outcome

Knowledge

You will gain knowledge of:

• The difference between causation and correlation
• Different concepts of causation Concept of selection bias and its causes
• Advantages and disadvantages of using experiments
• Advantages and disadvantages of different methods that control for selection bias
• The potential outcome framework and instrumental variables
• General approaches to identify causal effects in observational data
• Knowledge of assumptions behind different approaches to the identification of effects

Skills

You will learn:

• How to design a randomized controlled experiment
• How to use propensity score matching methods and synthetic control to analyze observational data
• How to instrumental variables, regression discontinuity and difference-in-difference methods to identify causal effects
• Ability to identify when the different methods for causal analysis are most appropriate
• Draw a directed acyclic graph of causal relationships and discuss how the structure of the graph enables or makes it difficult to identify a causal effect

General competence

You will gain:

• Increased awareness of the possibilities and limits of scientific knowledge
• Increased understanding of ethical problems in experiments

Admission to the course

This course is only available for students at the following master programmes:

• Health Economics, Policy and Management (master)
• European Master in Health Economics and Management (master)

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

Overlapping courses

• 10 credits overlap with HEVAL5140 ¨C Methods for effectiveness evaluations in health care (discontinued).
• 5 credits overlap with HEVAL5140 ¨C Methods for effectiveness evaluations in health care (discontinued).

Teaching

Primarily lectures. Some of the lectures will be in a computer lab where we will do excercises.

Examination

Written examination.

Examination and grading at The Faculty of Medicine.

Examination support material

A?web based calculator will also be available for use in Inspera.

Language of examination

You may write your examination paper in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or English.

Grading scale

Grades are awarded on a scale from A to F, where A is the best grade and F is a fail. Read more about the grading system.

Resit an examination

For Eu-HEM students:

An EU-hem student cannot present her or himself for the examination in a course more than two times. There will be held re-sits for EU-hem students who have failed an exam or who have legitimate absence (usually illness) in January and August. If you are entitled to a re-sit you must contact the student advisor via email no longer than one week after the result of the exam has been published.

More about examinations at UiO

• Use of sources and citations
• Special exam arrangements due to individual needs
• Withdrawal from an exam
• Illness at exams / postponed exams
• Explanation of grades and appeals
• Resitting an exam
• Cheating/attempted cheating

You will find further guides and resources at the web page on examinations at UiO.