75865 - Workshop: Building Empirical Case Studies in Health Economics

Learning outcomes

At the end of the workshop the student has fully developed under standard econometric packages a portfolio of case studies in applied health economics, through the following steps: 1) data collection, managing and validation 2) definition of key question and model specification 3) estimation and testing 4) post-estimation analysis and reporting. The focus is on preparatory work (steps 1 and 2) and post-estimation analysis (step 4). At the end of the course the student is able to develop his/her own applied studies from scratch.

Course contents

The purpose of the workshop is to provide students with skills in STATA required to conduct empirical quantitative analysis in health economics. The main focus of the course will be gaining familiarity with manipulating, analyzing, and interpreting data in STATA. In addition, we will discuss previous studies to demonstrate how researchers use the data and analysis techniques studied in class.

At the end of the workshop, the students will be able to:

• Autonomously find and extract data from on-line data repositories;
• Prepare data from large health-related datasets for econometric analysis;
• Produce descriptive statistics and simple data visualizations;
• Perform quantitative analysis, including regression techniques;
• Report empirical findings using relevant tables and figures in a journal-style manner;
• Interpret and comment empirical output.
  
  

Teaching methods

All classes will be in presence, and will involve a mixture of frontal lectures and practical sessions using STATA. Students will be given exercises to provide guided practice in implementing techniques covered in class. It is strongly recommended to bring a personal computer in class with the software STATA installed. STATA is available under a unibo license for all students enrolled in DSE first, second, or third cycle degree programmes.

Assessment methods

The class will be judged on a Pass/Fail basis. Passing the course will require submitting STATA code and output relating to a guided research project.

Teaching tools

The Unibo e-learning platform (Virtuale) will be used to share all relevant teaching material. STATA is available under a unibo license for all students enrolled in DSE first, second, or third cycle degree programmes.

Office hours

See the website of Jonathan Neil Chapman