Econometrics Section Track Sessions

Regression Discontinuity (RD) designs are at the forefront of the "credibility revolution" in applied econometrics. The RD approach estimates the causal effect of a treatment by leveraging an exogenous cut-off in a continuous variable that determines which groups receive a treatment and which groups do not. By comparing households immediately above and below the exogenous threshold, local treatment effects can estimated. In the last decade, the number of studies using and extending RD methods has grown dramatically and RD has become a key part of the empirical tool kit of labor, health, development and environmental economists. This track session will feature a single speaker, Professor Thomas Lemieux from the University of British Columbia, who has been at the forefront of developing this methods and demonstrating their usefulness to applied economists. Professor Lemieux will describe the historical evolution of RD studies and describe good empirical practice when applying them.

Econometrics is one of the cornerstone's of our discipline. The large majority of the published work in our journals are applied in nature and make use of quantitative methods, particularly econometrics. This session is focused on learning how to use and apply a specific Econometric technique, in this case Bayesian Model Averaging. We propose to have attendees bring their laptops and using R (given it is free) will learn how to perform Bayesian Model Averaging. This will not be a theory session. While this session is mainly targetted at non-econometrics section members, we suspect that many of the members in the econometrics section will also participate.

Econometrics is a fundamental tool for agricultural and applied economists. Given increased access to data and information, training students in econometrics is ever more important at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. This session focuses teaching approaches and tools from successful instructors, which impact learning outcomes for undergraduate and graduate students.