Teaching
Some of the lectures and handouts are available upon request
Foundations in Statistical Demography
International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
February 2024
As part of the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Ugofilippo Basellini and myself have taught a one-week course titled "Foundations in Statistical Demography".
Course description from the MPIDR web-page can be found here.
Concerning the contents, we covered the following topics:
Day 1: An Introduction to Linear Model
Day 2: Binomial and Poisson distributions & Overdispersion
Day 3: Non-linear models: Discrete smoothing & P-splines
Day 4: Non-linear models: Generalized Additive Models
Day 5: Presentation of the solutions to the exercises prepared by the students
Organizational-wise, we prepared 4 lectures with associated
slides with detailed explanation of each topic
handouts with fully reproducible R-codes
exercises to be solved and presented by students during the Day 5 of the course
office hours for discussing about introduced methods and approaches as well as possible solutions for the exercises
Advances in Mortality Forecasting
International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
June 2021 and January 2022
As part of the International Max Planck Research School for Population, Health and Data Science at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Ugofilippo Basellini and myself have taught a one-week course titled "Advances in Mortality Forecasting".
Course description from the MPIDR web-page can be found here and twitter announcement here for 2021. Similar description for 2022 is here.
Concerning the contents, we covered the following topics:
Day 1: Setting the methodological ground
Generalized (Non-)Linear Models
Singular Value Decomposition
Newton's method
ARIMA models
Residual bootstrap
Day 2: Starting with mortality forecasting
Mortality forecasting: an introduction
The Lee-Carter model
Day 3: Forecasting in a smoothing context
Day 4: The Segmented Transformation Age-at-death Distributions model
Day 5: An introduction to coherent mortality forecasting
Organizational-wise, we prepared 5 lectures with associated
pre-recorded videos with detailed explanation of each topic
slides for each introduced topic
handouts with fully reproducible R-codes
live-sessions for discussing about introduced methods and approaches
optional office-hours for smaller meetings
exercises to be solved and presented by students during the live-sessions
Mortality Modelling
SHG Doctoral Summer School of Demography
SHG Warsaw School of Economics
September 2023
Within the Doctoral Summer School of Demography I covered the mortality modules with three lectures and associated lab-session on classical and modern mortality modelling techniques:
Classical parametric models
The Lee-Carter model and its extensions
Semi-parametric mortality models
A description of the course can be found here.
Smoothing Demographic Data: Flexible Models in Population Studies
International Advanced Studies in Demography
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
June 2017 and May 2020
In 2017 and 2020, as part of the International Advanced Studies in Demography at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, I have taught a 20-hours course titled "Smoothing Demographic Data: Flexible Models in Population Studies".
Course description from the MPIDR web-page can be found here and twitter announcement for the second (on-line) edition of the course is available here.
For this course, within a week, I prepared 5 lectures during the morning with associated lab-sessions in R in the afternoon (at least when in its first edition was proposed offline). Specifically I covered the following topics:
Introduction to Generalized Linear Model
Introduction to Generalized Linear Model
Basic linear model
Let’s forget about normality
The Iterative Weighted Least-Squares algorithm
Estimating Poisson model by hand
Discrete smoothing
The pursuit of smoothness
Penalty! (Double) Goal!
Optimizing the amount of smoothness
Smoothing histograms
Including exposures
P-splines
Let’s forget about linearity
B-splines: What’s that?
Penalizing the coefficients
Smoothing counts
Simple extrapolation
Extending P-splines
Dealing with more covariates
Smoothing spatial data
Tensor P-splines
Shape constraints
Calculus with smooth data
Introduction to Generalized Additive Models (for Location, Scale and Shape)
Presenting mgcv by examples
Presenting gamlss by examples
Statistical Demography / Event History Analysis
European Doctoral School for Demography
Institut national d'études démographiques
University of Southern Denmark, Odense,
Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona
Lunds Universitet
2009-10, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19, 2020-21, 2021-22, 2022-23, 2023-24
Under the umbrella of the European Doctoral School for Demography, I have been teaching this course for several years (2009-12, 2015-24) in collaboration with Jutta Gampe and previously also with Trifon I. Missov from the Centre on Population Dynamics (Odense). I covered different modules giving the following classes, with their associated lab-sessions in R:
Logistic Regression Models
Parametric Proportional Hazard Models
Piece-Wise Constant Hazard Models
Cox Proportional Hazard Models
Discrete Time Models
Demographic Models for Aggregate Data
A Crash Course on LaTeX
European Doctoral School for Demography
Institut national d'études démographiques
University of Southern Denmark, Odense
Università degli Studi di Roma "La Sapienza"
November 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, March 2024
I prepared a short introduction to LaTeX which mainly aimed to overcome the fear of starting with this word processor and document markup language. Originally prepared for the students of the European Doctoral School for Demography for the EDSD 310 Research Seminars & Colloquium Series, I opened the lecture to numerous researchers and professors from the Faculty of Economics in "La Sapienza". I have taught this course for the EDSD cohorts 2015-16, 2016-17, 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2023-24. This last edition with the help of Ugofilippo Basellini who gave an introduction on Beamer class and preparation of slides by LaTeX.
I divided the class in two parts: 1) a "face-to-face" lecture that introduces the software and some features; 2) a practical class in which students went throughout the examples I provided.
The course was mainly divided in the following sections:
Introduction
Tips and Tricks
Graphics and tables
Cross-referencing
(Slides)
Computer Programming for Demographers
European Doctoral School for Demography
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
2006-07, 2010-11, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2013-14, 2014-15, 2015-16
The European Doctoral School for Demography divides its curriculum in two main parts: a 2-months period with preparatory courses in Statistics, Mathematics, Demography and Programming and 9 months with main courses in all demographic issues.
Within the preparatory period, I have been involved several years (2006, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015) in giving the course in Computer Programming for Demographers. Roland Rau and Sabine Zinn currently at Universität Rostock and DIW Berlin (German Institute for Economic Research), respectively, collaborated at the final syllabus of this course:
First steps:
R as pocket calculator
Using an editor
Getting Help and the packages system
Data-Handling
Vectors
Basic instruments
Matrices, arrays, data frame and lists
Basic functions
Programming tools
Control structures
Vectorization
Writing functions
Descriptive statistics and basic plotting
Basic statistics
Contingency tables
Displaying data
Storage of plots
Distributions and manual optimization
Common statistical distributions
Random Sampling
Numerical optimization
Basic regression
Linear Models
GLMs
Demography: measures and analysis
Filière: Ingénierie statistique des territoires et de la santé
Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Analyse de l’Information (ENSAI) Campus de Ker Lann, Rennes
In September-October from 2013 to 2023
In 2013 the Ecole Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Analyse de l’Information (ENSAI) asked me to prepare a 18h-course in demography with particular focus on applications and techniques. This course was part of the curriculum in Ingénierie statistique des territoires et de la santé.
I have been teaching this course since 2013 and I composed it in 6 2hr-lectures, each followed by lab-sessions of 1hr. I also prepared 2 (or 3) assignments for grading the students. Here a rough table of contents of the course:
Demographic accounting:
the balancing equation and growth rates
rates and person-years
the Lexis diagram
rates vs. probabilities
age-specific rates
age-standardization
decomposition of differences between rates
Life-table construction
a toy example
period life-tables
the issues of the ax , rate/probability conversion and open-ended interval
life-table in a continuous frame
life-table as a stationary population
Demographic models for aggregate data
parametric models over age
Relational models
Lee-Carter model and its variations
Smoothing methods in mortality
Quick Smoothing
Generalized Additive Model: a short overview
Direct Smoothing
P-splines
Fertility and reproduction
Period fertility rates
Cohort Fertility
Tempo effects
Reproduction measures
Coale-McNeil and Coale-Trussell models
Henry’s “Natural Fertility”
Population projection
Cohort component method
Projection matrix and age-classified model
Forecasting model parameters
The Lee-Carter model for forecasting mortality
Démographie - DES319
3ème année DataScience
École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique (ENSAE ParisTech) Malakoff - Paris Saclay
March 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019
(link)
I have been involved in the course in Démographie (DES319) for the years 2014-15, 2015-16, 2016-17 and 2017-18, 2018-19 at the ENSAE ParisTech (École Nationale de la Statistique et de l'Administration Économique). Specifically I taught three classes: (1) Analysis of mortality: measures and developments, (2) Population Dynamics: an introduction, (3) Population Projection: an introduction. The course was organized by Anne Solaz (INED) and other instructors were associated: Carole Bonnet and Ariane Pailhe, always from INED.
Here a rough table of contents of my classes:
Analysis of mortality: measures and developments
rates and person-years
the Lexis diagram
rates vs. probabilities
life table
mortality developments and determinants
Population Dynamics: an introduction
life table in a continuous framework
the stationary population
the stable population model
Population Projections: an introduction
Cohort Component Method
Matrix representation of the cohort component method
Forecasting with the Lee-Carter model
Some outcomes from projections
R for demographers: advanced topics
Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital, Vienna
September 2012
I organized this intensive course at Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital for researchers with already some background in R. I provide in advance a list of possible topics and, finally, they were interested in the following ones:
Piece-Wise Constant Hazard Model
Enhancing your Output, i.e. how to make nice plots
Matrix Algebra
Smoothing Methods
Introduction to R for demographers
Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital, Vienna
September 2012
The Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital is organize a series of courses for PhD-students and researchers in various fields such as demography, economics, statistics, sociology. In September 2012, they asked me to provide a course in R which would have given a similar starting-point to all of them. In the lectures I focused on demographic as well as common programming examples. Classes were practically lab-sessions in which both students and instructors were proceeding throughout handouts prepared on the following topics:
First steps in R
Basic Programming Instruments
Descriptive Statistics and Plots
Programming Tools
Distributions and Manual Optimization
Survival analysis and demographic aggregate data
Ciclo de Conferencias y Curso postgrado
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Sevilla.
May 2012
The Spanish Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas) is regularly organizing courses and series of seminars either in their head-quarter in Madrid or in research centres around Spain. In May 2012, I was pleased to be invited for giving a course at the Institute of Statistics and Cartography of Andalusia (Instituto de Estadística y Cartografía de Andalucía) in Sevilla. In this occasion I gave three lectures with associated lab-sessions in R on the following topics:
The Piece-Wise Constant Hazard Model
Demographic Models for Aggregate Data
Relational Models and Smoothing Approaches
Short course in Programming with R for Demographers
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, Madrid.
February 2010
In February 2010, I gave this intensive introductory course in R for PhD-students and researchers at the Instituto de Economía, Geografía y Demografía within the Spanish Spanish National Research Council (Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas). Students had already some basic knowledge about the software, therefore I started revising the fundamentals. I prepared handouts for each class and, during the lectures, I walked throughout them with the students. I covered the following topics:
Revising the basic: flow-control & functions
Enhancing your output: basic statistics & plots
Distributions, Random Numbers & Manual Optimization
Generalized Linear Models, a demographic perspective
Matrix algebra and cohort component projection
Introduction to R
MicMac: Bridging the micro-macro gap in population forecasting
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
April 2006
This was a 3 day intensive workshop in April 2006 for the European MicMac project at the Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research. It was prepared for for postdocs and research scientists working in this project and it was jointly prepared and taught with Jutta Gampe from the MPIDR and Roland Rau, currently at Universität Rostock.
Basic Statistics for Demographers (T.A.)
European Doctoral School for Demography
Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research
2005-06
The European Doctoral School for Demography divides its curriculum in two main parts: a 2-months period with preparatory courses in Statistics, Mathematics, Demography and Programming and 9 months with main courses in all demographic issues. Within the preparatory period of the first year of this school, I have been teaching assistant of Jutta Gampe from MPIDR for the course in Basic Statistics for the first EDSD cohort 2005-2006.