This PhD course is hosted by DGPE and Trygfonden's Centre for Child Research.

Description

This course is intended for PhD students in economics or related quantitative fields who have an interest in the economics of education, especially teachers, and personnel economics.

Most societies aspire to promoting equal opportunity – all children should have similar chances to succeed, limited only by their efforts and innate abilities. But no society achieves this; in every country, children from higher-income families grow up to be more successful than children from lower-income families. The education system is the most powerful lever we have to equalize opportunity. But it doesn’t fully accomplish this, and often actively works against it. This course considers economic and measurement issues related to intergenerational mobility, equality of opportunity, and disparities in educational outcomes. Topics to be considered include school choice, segregation, college admissions, and policy design.

Students are expected to have familiarity with basic econometrics of program evaluation and causal inference, including tools such as difference-in-differences and regression discontinuity.

> course description

Format and schedule

This course is comprised of the equivalent to 2 full days of teaching (12 hrs) in addition to preparing readings (20 hrs) and presentations (or the submission of a research proposal after the course) (20 hrs). 

• Monday 24 Februar 2025: sessions 12:00 - 16:30  
  Course dinner 18:00
• Tuesday 25 February 2025: sessions 8:30 - 16:30
• Wednesday 26 February 2025: sessions 8:30 - 12:00

Lecturer

Professor Jesse Rothstein, University of California, Berkeley: https://jesse-rothstein.com

ECTS credits

In order to receive credits for the course, students should either give a presentation (30 min) within the topics covered by the course (broadly speaking) or submit a research proposal (5-10 pages) no later than 2 weeks after the course has finished.

Registration: 24 January 2025 (including a draft paper if interested in this option).

https://events.au.dk/dgpecourseeducationinequalityandmobility/signup

For PhD students at AU (ECON), this course has been pre-approved as an internal BSS PhD course equivalent to 2 ECTS.

The course is free of charge for DGPE members from AU, KU, CBS, SDU, AAU - and for PhD students from Economics Departments at Nordic universities outside Denmark.

The course fee is EUR150 for other participants.

Contact
Susanne Christensen
PhD secretary
sch@econ.au.dk