Causal methods in sociology

Olivier Godechot

Sciences Po. Master of sociology (second year). Fall semester.

10:15-12:15 on Tuesdays

18 hours from September 3^rd to November 5^th 2024

Room C.S21 - Campus Saint-Thomas

This course is a non-technical introduction to statistical methods at the heart of the “credibility revolution” in the Social Sciences: experiments, quasi-experiments, regression discontinuity design, difference-in-differences, instrumental variables and panel regressions. These methods enable to make more convincing causal claims.

The course will be as follows. For each notion, a lecture will develop the key concepts and provide basic intuitions on the functioning of the method. It will be followed the week after by an implementation of the method with real data where we replicate some article’s tables.

We will use R and R-Studio statistical software. We recommend students to come with their laptops. Students should install the following packages on their laptop:
AER, plm, pglm, lfe, texreg, survival, fixest.

This class is part of Sciences Po’s Master in Sociology second year track. It is however open to all Sciences Po students, notably Students in other masters (Political Science, History, etc.) and PhD students. To follow this course, students must have a basic command of R software and of statistical notions such as statistical tests (Student and Chi-square tests), OLS and logistic regressions.

In order to validate this class, students must write a 2000 words (maximum) statistical memo (references and tables not included) where they apply one of the causal methods thought in class (weeks 3 to 9).

1. Econometric Reminder. Lecture

Reading: Herpin, Nicolas. 2003. “La taille des hommes : son incidence sur la vie en couple et la carrière professionnelle”, Economie et Statistique, 361, p. 71-90.

DeepL (c) translation: Herpin, Nicolas. 2023 (2003). “Men’s sizes: its impact on married life and professional careers”, Économie et statistique, 361: 71-90.

2. Econometric Reminder. Implementation

Replication: Herpin, Nicolas. 2003. “La taille des hommes : son incidence sur la vie en couple et la carrière professionnelle”, Economie et Statistique, 361, p. 71-90.

DeepL (c) translation: Herpin, Nicolas. 2023 (2003). “Men’s sizes: its impact on married life and professional careers”, Économie et statistique, 361: 71-90.

3. Experimental methods (natural experiments, difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity design). Lecture

Reading: Mize, Trenton D., and Bianca Manago. 2018. “Precarious sexuality: How men and women are differentially categorized for similar sexual behavior.” American Sociological Review 83(2): 305-330.

4. Experimental methods (natural experiments, difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity design). Implementation

Reading and replication: Godechot, Olivier, 2016. The Chance of Influence: A Natural Experiment on the Role of Social Capital in Faculty Recruitment. Social Networks, vol. 46, p. 61-75.

5. Instrumental variables. Lecture

Reading: Goux, Dominique and Eric Maurin. Close neighbours matter: Neighbourhood effects on early performance at school. The Economic Journal, 2007, vol. 117, no 523, p. 1193-1215.

6. Instrumental variables. Implementation

Replication: Goux, Dominique and Eric Maurin. Close neighbours matter: Neighbourhood effects on early performance at school. The Economic Journal, 2007, vol. 117, no 523, p. 1193-1215.

7. Panel regression. Lecture

Reading: WALDFOGEL, Jane. The effect of children on women's wages. American sociological review, 1997, Vol. 62, No. 2 (Apr., 1997), p. 209-217.

8. November 22nd 2022.12h30. Room H003. Panel regression. Implementation

Replication: WALDFOGEL, Jane. The effect of children on women's wages. American sociological review, 1997, Vol. 62, No. 2 (Apr., 1997), p. 209-217.

9. Mixing it all (Complements to be defined with students: Diff-in-Diff and Lag Dependent Variable)

References

Articles used in class

Godechot, Olivier, 2016. The Chance of Influence: A Natural Experiment on the Role of Social Capital in Faculty Recruitment. Social Networks, vol. 46, p. 61-75.

Goux, Dominique and Eric Maurin. Close neighbours matter: Neighbourhood effects on early performance at school. The Economic Journal, 2007, vol. 117, no 523, p. 1193-1215.

Herpin, Nicolas. 2003. “La taille des hommes : son incidence sur la vie en couple et la carrière professionnelle”, Economie et Statistique, 361, p. 71-90.

Mize, Trenton D., and Bianca Manago. 2018. “Precarious sexuality: How men and women are differentially categorized for similar sexual behavior.” American Sociological Review 83(2): 305-330.

WALDFOGEL, Jane. The effect of children on women's wages. American sociological review, 1997, Vol. 62, No. 2 (Apr., 1997), p. 209-217.

Handbooks

Introductory

Wooldridge, Jeffrey M. Introductory econometrics: A modern approach. Cengage learning, 2015.
https://www.academia.edu/44467534/ECONOMETRICS_A_Modern_Approach

Behaghel, Luc. Lire l'économétrie. No. 460. La Découverte, 2006.
https://www.cairn.info/lire-l-econometrie--9782707173119.htm

Advanced

Morgan, Stephen L., and Christopher Winship. Counterfactuals and causal inference. Cambridge University Press, 2015.

https://edisciplinas.usp.br/pluginfile.php/3984640/mod_resource/content/2/%5BStephen_L._Morgan%2C_Christopher_Winship%5D_Counterfa%28BookFi.org%29%20%281%29%281%29.pdf

Angrist, Joshua D., and Jörn-Steffen Pischke. Mostly harmless econometrics: An empiricist's companion. Princeton university press, 2009.

http://muhammadayyoub.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Mostly-harmless-econometrics.pdf

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