Dr Natacha Postel-Vinay SAR 613

and Miss Jennifer Kohler

This course is compulsory on the MSc in Quantitative Economic History. This course is available on the MSc in Economic History, MSc in Economic History (Research), MSc in Global Economic History (Erasmus Mundus) and MSc in Political Economy of Late Development. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

Students enrolled for this course are expected to have completed at least introductory undergraduate courses in statistics and/or econometrics and economic theory. The course will begin with a revision of the main quantitative approaches but will not provide a comprehensive training in econometric methods or computer applications.

Please note: EH426M cannot be taken with EH426L.

The course will provide an overview of quantitative approaches in economic history mainly using cross-section and panel data. The course will examine the use of quantitative techniques through critical discussion of their application in recent literature.  Techniques discussed will include multiple regression analysis, regression diagnostics, instrumental variables, fixed and random effects, difference-in-difference analysis, regression discontinuity design, discrete choice models and limited dependent variables. The course is organised on a topic basis, with subjects chosen to illustrate particular theoretical, quantitative and methodological issues.

20 hours of seminars in the MT.

This course is delivered through a combination of classes and lectures totalling a minimum of 20 hours across Michaelmas Term. This year, some or all of this teaching will be delivered through a combination of virtual classes and lectures in the form of recorded live webinars. This course includes a reading week in Week 6 of Michaelmas Term.

Students are expected to write one essay or equivalent pieces of written work.

There is no mandatory textbook for this course, but the brief overview of quantitative methods during the first four weeks will follow:

• Wooldridge, J.M. (2009), Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach, International Student Edition.

Useful background readings include:

• J.L. Van Zanden, The Long Road to the Industrial Revolution: The European Economy in a Global Perspective, 1000-1800 (Leiden, 2009);
• K.H. O'Rourke and J.G. Williamson, Globalization and History: The Evolution of a Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Economy (Cambridge MA, 1998);
• C. Goldin and L.F. Katz, The race between education and technology (Cambridge, MA, 2008);
• D. Greasley and L. Oxley (eds.), Economics and History: Surveys in Cliometrics (Oxford, 2011).6).

Essay (100%, 5000 words).