Armenian Independent University - Summer School - June 28 to July 9, 2021


Syllabus: Economic Policy Analysis in Armenia


Course Description: This course investigates the role of government in the economy and aims at equipping students with tools sufficient to address a wide range of economic policy issues. The emphasis is on microeconomic analysis of real-life policies in Armenia. We study the instruments by which governments intervene in the marketplace policies, and apply our tools to analyze policy problems in social security, demographics, education and health, among others. Students can additionally expect to learn some of the main methods of modern microeconometrics.


Requirements:

  • Intermediate Micro and Macro Economics

  • Applied Statistics and Basic Econometrics

  • Basic Algebra


Schedule: Meet daily at 2:00 - 3:45pm Yerevan time; zoom link: tba


Recommended reading:


Course Plan


June 28: Zareh Asatryan, ZEW Mannheim

  • Introduction to economic policy analysis; Course syllabus

June 28 - June 29: Davit Adunts, Charles University in Prague - CERGE-EI

  • Economics of Education; teacher value added models, educational production functions, skill formation with an emphasize on policy issues in Armenian education system

  • Concepts: Social Welfare Functions and Equity-Efficiency Tradeoff, Cost-benefit Analysis

June 30 - July 1: Armenak Antinyan, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law

  • Using Behavioral Insights to improve Public Policy in Armenia; Health, Environment, Nudges

  • Methods: Randomized control trials as the gold standard

July 1 - 2: Geghetsik Afunts, CERGE-EI, Charles University, The Czech Academy of Sciences

  • The Path from Cause to Effect in Education Research

  • Methods: Impact Evaluation, Instrumental Variables, Differences-in-Differences

July 5-6: Ella Sargsyan, CERGE-EI

  • Demographics, with application on the role of conflict on fertility choices

  • Methods: Spatial econometrics

July 7-8: Yeva Aleksanyan, Colorado State University

  • Universal and targeted approaches to education, healthcare and poverty alleviation

  • Methods: microsimulation models using Armenian Household Surveys


July 9: Vahagn Jerbashian, Universitat de Barcelona, BEAT, and CESifo (Macroeconomic and Finance)