Tools and Methods for Economists

The main objective of this course is to give the student a fundamental understanding of methods for economists, theoretical as well as practical. Ethical aspects in research are included. The methods that are presented during the course may be divided into two parts - mathematics and econometrics. During the first part of the course we discuss and apply concepts and methods in mathematics that are useful for theoretical work within economics as well as econometrics. Examples of such notions and methods are functional forms, systems of equations, logarithms, derivatives and optimization. Then, the course transitions into discussing econometrics where the focus is notions, interpretation and practical usage of the classical regression model (OLS). The econometric tools under discussion are also motivated theoretically. The main focus is on OLS, but other methods are discussed and applied to handle econometric problems related mainly to types of variable and data. Examples are binary dependent variables and time series data. During the model we work with actual data material and presentation of results.