Fall 2006 Course Description
Advanced Topics in Public Policy
| Section Title: |
Social Policy Evaluation in Latin America |
| Instructor(s): |
Chandler Stolp |
| Course: |
P A 388K - Advanced Topics in Public Policy
(previously Seminar in Topics in Public Policy) |
| Unique Number: |
65375 |
| Day & Time: |
Fridays, 9:00 AM - 12:00 PM |
| Room: |
SRH 3.102 |
| Waitlist Information: | For LBJ Students: UT Waitlist Information
For Non LBJ Students: LBJ School Waitlist Instructions |
This course fulfills requirements for the following specialization(s):
- International Affairs
- Social and Economic Policy
Description: Overview: This special offering is part of a multi-year project that the University of Texas is carrying out under an agreement with the Brazilian government to train a select group of mid-level public policy analysts in research methods for evaluating social programs. LBJ students and Latin American Studies students who have completed Advanced Empirical Methods or its equivalent are welcome to enroll with the instructor's permission. Students working on professional reports related to the evaluation of social policies in Latin America are especially encouraged to consider this course. A command of Portuguese or Spanish is highly desirable.
Objective: The objective of the course is to develop skills in the use of census, survey, and othe large databases to analyze both the need for and the impact of policy initiatives in education, health, workforce training, and other areas of social policy. The focus will be on Latin American data and applications, but participants will also review the best practices in the United States and the rest of the world. Students will carry out individual or joint projects involving the analysis of one or more large data sets of their own choosing that relate to a specific social policy question.
Readings draw from the literature on program evaluation, quasi-experimental design, and econometrics. The microeconometrics of evaluation has become a particularly exciting area of research in recent years. While oftentimes challenging, it has important implications on public policy analysis. Students will write regular commentaries on real-world studies and analyze large real-world datasets using the methods and techniques developed in the course.
Evaluation of student performance will be based on: Participation in class discussions (30%) and (2) weekly empirical exercises (70%).
Due to the special nature of this international collaboration, LBJ/LLILAS enrollment will be limited to eight students.
Return to Fall 2006 Course Schedule
