MACHINE LEARNING FOR ECONOMISTS
ECON 725
Introduction to the use of Machine Learning (ML) in economic analysis. Covers basic techniques of ML, much attention will be devoted to evaluating the use of these tools in economics. Learn how economists are integrating the tools of ML with econometric techniques in current empirical research. Gain hands on experience in using these techniques to answer traditional questions of interest to economists. Topics include (i) an in-depth discussion of the differences and similarities in goals, empirical settings and tools between ML and econometrics, (ii) supervised learning methods for regression and classification, unsupervised learning methods, large data analysis and data mining, (iii) recent methods at the intersection of ML and econometrics, designed for causal inference, optimal policy estimation, estimation of counterfactual effects. The methods are taught with an emphasis on practical application.
