Kort om Advanced Microeconometrics

a) Can you give an example of a problem you go through in the course?

• Advanced microeconometrics is catered to answering economic questions empirically using micro data. These questions include some of the most hotly debated both in- and outside of academia such as: what is the payoff in wages from taking another year of education? What is the effect of active labor market policies (da: aktivering) on the probability of becoming employed?  What is the effect on female labor supply of having a child?
  
• The questions listed above – as well as most major micro-questions considered in economics – involve human behavior and thus require us to think about the problem in a deeper way to avoid the pitfalls that many journalists and untrained empiricists might fall into such as reverse causality, omitted variables, etc.
  
• The course will both concretely provide tools and experience in applying the primary tools from the modern microeconometrician’s tool box as well as a solid understanding of their workings – theoretically and practically, from hands-on-experience coding up and working with the estimators.

b) Are there any courses it would be an advantage to pass before this?
The core bachelor econometrics courses are a must. Other than that, it depends on taste; in the other master’s level micro courses, the tools will constantly be encountered whenever researchers provide empirical evidence. If you take, for example, the labor course before, you will know the questions that need answering as the motivation for learning the tools, but if you know the microeconometric tools first, you have a good chance of understanding and assessing the empirical papers encountered in the labor course.  

c) Does this course give you abilities to join other courses?
The course is a formal requirement to attend the dynamic programming course, which teaches research frontier methods in structural econometrics (heavy duty, very cool models). While the course isn’t formally required in many of the other master’s level courses, it is extremely useful for reading and understanding modern empirical microeconomic research. 

d) If I like this course, are there any other course I can join which complements this?
Any of the master’s level micro courses relying on micro-level empirical evidence:

1. labor economics

2. international economics

3. economics of education

4. family economics

5. political economics

And of course advanced macroeconometrics and financial econometrics if one wants to specialize in econometrics broadly.  

e) What could be a master thesis topic related to your course?
If you are considering undertaking an empirical microeconomic master’s thesis, this course is absolutely essential. Not only will it teach you how to read and digest empirical research, you will also have code and experience in modifying code to a particular topic.