Course Outcomes
Econ 461 students will be able to
- Evaluate education policy from an economics perspective
- Incorporate costs and benefits in education policy analysis
- Identify unintended consequences associated with alternative policy options
- Base analysis on research literature findings.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the theoretical underpinnings of the field
- Education production
- Human Capital formation
- Role of incentives.
- Speak fluently and intelligently about current issues in education policy, including
- US and International policy
- Teacher labor markets
- K-12 education policy
- Higher education.
- Evaluate the economics of education research literature
- Know the seminal papers in the field, and how they shaped the discipline
- Know the current "cutting edge" papers and how they are pushing the frontiers of knowledge.
- Demonstrate an understanding of the quantitative methods and research tools that empirical education economists use to conduct research, including
- Cross sectional and panel data models
- Methods to account for selection bias
- The importance of obtaining causal effects.