Last updated on August 15, 2017
I do all of my teaching in the fall, which means that I have spent the last week and am spending this week preparing my teaching for the fall semester.
One of the classes that I teach is the Department’s undergraduate development class, formally titled Microeconomics of International Development.
Because the students in my class have heterogeneous levels of preparation when it comes to econometrics, I have them read two handouts aiming to give them a good intuitive understanding. One is a primer on linear regression, which teaches them how to read a table of regression results. The other is a primer on causality, which teaches them how to question the causal statements they are presented with and discusses a few of the ways causality can be disentangled from correlation. I make both handouts available here given that other instructors of classes relying on quantitative findings might find them useful.
* It should go without saying that I do not think of my students as dummies. But because there’s always someone whose sarcasm detector is broken, I should note that I am merely capitalizing here on the famous “for Dummies” book series…