Electives

This module is intended for individuals who are interested in the functions of the market in modern economies and who in the course of their careers may be in positions of regulating market behaviour for public policy purposes. The focus is to identify what makes the market imperfect or cause market failures. The course will also examine the appropriate form of governmental intervention. 

This module will help students to understand the concepts and practice of leadership and develop a better knowledge of public service. Students will be exposed to insights and best practices, with emphasis on the public service and learn the skills to develop into a capable leader. Students will learn to lead, anticipate the future, make decisions, know their bias, build teams, motivate, communicate, understand the public interest and become better leaders. 

This course seeks to explore the role of political leadership in economic policy and performance. It starts with a discussion of politics at the central level and introduces the merits and problems in the Chinese economic context. Students will be exposed to two major debates about control mechanisms in managing central-local relations: fiscal decentralization and promotion tournament. They will critically engage these two theories by examining some recent empirical works. This course concludes with four important issues facing today’s Chinese economy: urbanization, pollution, financial policy and corruption. Students will gain insights about policies that are crucial to China’s future growth.

This course covers policy issues of modern ageing societies, with special emphases on social policy, families, and comparisons between Asian countries and Western countries. To tackle the complex issues, we discuss both relevant theories and empirical evidence from various disciplines including sociology, economics, public health, and human biology. The first section investigates the underlying causes of population ageing and presents trends in population age distributions around the globe. In the second section, we review old-age support provided by the government, the family, and the elderly themselves, and discuss challenges of providing the support. Lastly, the third section describes policy options to mitigate the consequences of population ageing and evaluates the policies.

This course is designed to improve the understanding and applications of the principles and policies of sustainability and the environment. It examines the policy challenges of achieving global sustainability where strides have been made in some respects, notably poverty alleviation, while others, strikingly climate change and mass species extinction, have accelerated at alarming rates. The course will shift attention from “implementing” what are often self-standing and competing sustainability goals, to focusing on developing “fit for purpose” policy designs for effectively and urgently prioritizing make or break sustainability conundrums.

Good governance and managing conflicting ethical demands are key skills for policy makers. This course seeks to introduce students to the ethical aspects of some major problems in global governance. Topics include foundations of ethical theory, human rights, intervention, climate change, immigration and trade. Background readings come mostly from moral philosophical, political theory and political science. Each session pays special attention to a particular policy area in the international domain and thereby combines philosophical inquiry with applied questions. The course does not have any formal prerequisites.  

This project-based module allows students to develop innovative solutions to real-world policy problems. Students work in teams with external partners (government, corporate, incubators, non-profit organizations, foundations, etc.) to develop a concrete innovative “product" that addresses a specific public policy issue. Students work with their partner on a project. They participate in workshop-style lectures on key issues related to innovation including diffusion, disruption, and policy application, and on practical skills for policy innovation including design thinking, human-centered design, stakeholder analysis, and problem-solving processes. External partners reserve the right to select the student teams working on their proposed projects.

This course looks at pension systems design and public policy issues associated with retirement income provision in Singapore and internationally. It provides students with an understanding of different models of social security systems, the economics and finance of pensions, governments’ role in pension provision, and reform options. Topics covered include: rationale for state involvement; types of pension schemes; plan design and policy choices; Singapore’s Central Provident Fund scheme; fiscal sustainability of pension systems; distributional issues and risk sharing; recent reforms and policy developments; and international comparisons. A special focus is given to the implications of population ageing on pension policy.

This course teaches students how to systematically analyse complex policy problems and conduct policy design to address long-term challenges. The skillset is generic and can be applied to different domains (e.g. Transport, Environment, Energy, Health, etc.). This makes this course crucial for professionals with functions that require long-horizon thinking and decision-making. Relevant theories and techniques and their limitations covered include system analysis, actor analysis, policy networks, problem formulation, definition of goal hierarchies, information gathering, generation of a library of policy measures, analysis and selection of policy measures, multi-criteria decision making, generation of alternative solutions, and analysis of their trade-offs.  

This course introduces game theoretic tools to examine strategic behavior and its consequences for a wide range of economic, political, and social applications. We develop important techniques to better navigate strategic interactions from decision-making under risk and uncertainty, collective decision-making, agenda setting and strategic voting, negotiating and bargaining, the value of common knowledge, information disclosure with signaling and screening, participating in auctions, and designing strategyproof mechanisms in practice. We also highlight the limitations of rationality in practice and develop strategic analysis and institutional design techniques in light of individual/collective decision-making given such empirical (ir-)regularities from behavioral economics.

Will technological change lead to mass unemployment and civil unrest? This module aims to introduce students to the implications of technological changes in the labour market, through the lens of economics, sociology, demography, and other subfields of social science. One of the central themes of the module is the notion that technology holds heterogenous effects on the labour market constituents. In this course, we will delve into the sources of the heterogeneity. We will also examine and evaluate the current individual- and firm- level efforts as well as policy efforts to regulate the nature and the pace of workplace technologies.

This course is a broad introduction to organisations and management. It consists of lectures and discussions based on weekly reading assignments. Students will combine their practical knowledge with the class readings to gain new perspectives. The topics include data and decision-making, reengineering work, organisational structure, organisational network and institutional theories. Students are expected to keep up with the readings and be prepared to discuss them in class. Understanding organisations is important for public administration and decision making in public policy. Under new public management, we have to understand organisations outside the public sector as well as in the public sector.

This module provides a survey of energy transition and green transformation in Asia and related policy challenges from a global perspective. The module concentrates on three topics: (i) Energy sustainability challenges and the green transformation imperative; (ii) Efforts of Asian countries in renewable energy development; and (iii) International best practices in promoting green transformation and policy lessons for Asia/ASEAN countries.

The course will explore the features, applications, benefits and risks of emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Bitcoin, Ethereum, Digital Currencies, Cloud, 5G, IoT, 3D Printing and Robots on social policy (education, healthcare, insurance, social safety nets), employment and wages, fiscal policy (taxation and expenditure), transport and smart cities and implications for politics and social cohesion (fake news, deep fake, election manipulation). It will explore policies and regulatory implications in terms of growth, equity, security, privacy, efficiency and risk management for Singapore. The course will be comparative in perspective and will draw from the experience of the US, China, Europe, Japan and Singapore.

That international politics can be conceived as a game with its own special rules is a truism for most analysts of the subject. Yet there does not exist a list of what the rules of the game are. This course will examine a list of ten possible contenders for inclusion in the list. The class will debate and dissect these “rules,” with the aim of arriving at a mutually agreeable and defensible list of the key rules of the international politics game by the end of the semester.

This course provides an overview to the study of business and politics. We will examine how politics and politicians affect the business world by analysing topics such as regulation, lobbying, corruption, taxation, and trade. We will draw from comparative and international political economy, governance research, and related disciplines such as management and economics. The course will begin by discussing the role of the state in governing markets and business behaviour. we then move forward to the discussion of the formation of business interests and preferences regarding public policy. Moreover, we will review how businesses can acquire and exert political power.

This course deals with social policy issues with special reference to Southeast Asian countries. The policies analysed include those relating to ethnicity, urbanisation, housing, migration, labour, poverty and its alleviation, education and health. The ideas of state responsibility to provide for basic needs and of a social safety net are considered. 

This course is designed to improve the understanding and applications of the principles and policies of sustainability and the environment. It examines the policy challenges of achieving global sustainability where strides have been made in some respects, notably poverty alleviation, while others, strikingly climate change and mass species extinction, have accelerated at alarming rates. The course will shift attention from “implementing” what are often self-standing and competing sustainability goals, to focusing on developing “fit for purpose” policy designs for effectively and urgently prioritizing make or break sustainability conundrums.

Good governance and managing conflicting ethical demands are key skills for policy makers. This course seeks to introduce students to the ethical aspects of some major problems in global governance. Topics include foundations of ethical theory, human rights, intervention, climate change, immigration and trade. Background readings come mostly from moral philosophical, political theory and political science. Each session pays special attention to a particular policy area in the international domain and thereby combines philosophical inquiry with applied questions. The course does not have any formal prerequisites.

This course introduces the political, economic, and security issues in the interstate relations of Southeast Asia since the end of World War II. It studies regionalism and regional cooperation and conflict in Southeast Asia with a focus on ASEAN as the epicentre of Southeast Asian regionalism. It examines how ASEAN member states have coped with various challenges and sought to manage regional order and stability.

We seek to understand institutional changes in a Leninist, single-party authoritarian state. Our overarching goal is to explain how politics and the evolution of political institutions help explain the patterns and outcomes of major socioeconomic reforms. A number of questions run through the course: Who were the important actors driving China’s rapid economic transformation? What incentivized them to pursue change? What was the role of the central state and its local agents? How did property rights emerge and evolve in an authoritarian state? Why some reforms succeeded others not (yet)? What explains the sequence of reform? Who are the winners and losers, and why? What are some of the unintended consequences of reform? While the focus is on China, important themes in political economy will be drawn and discussed so as to frame discussions in a broader comparative, theoretical setting.

The course brings students up to date on the state of the field of international trade – both theory and empirics, without relying on overly technical models. The first part provides an overall understanding of international trade theory – comparative advantage, gains and losses, scale and scope, exporting vs non-exporting firms, offshoring and outsourcing; the second part resolves some common misconceptions about trade often seen in the media, and highlights key lessons from the latest empirical research; the third part focuses exclusively on trade policy in Asia, with episodes from Japan, China, India, South Korea, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and others.

The SG Botanic Gardens, chicken rice, and pinisi boats - heritage is part of our lives, emotional attachments, memories, and identities. Because of its ubiquitous significance, heritage is also mobilized to facilitate international dialogue or legitimate shifts in geo-political landscapes. But whose heritage is invoked where international alliances and boundaries are concerned? How to make sense of competing heritage claims? This interdisciplinary, experiential course draws on politics, international affairs, heritage, geography and history in order to interrogate the geopolitical and economic significance of heritage. Combining theory and practice, the course also invites students to conceptualize individual “geopolitics of heritage” projects.

The on-going wave of globalisation has changed the character of threats to human, national and international security. The present security discourse stands in major contrast to the traditional realist understanding of security that prevailed during the Cold War. This interdisciplinary, experiential learning course examines key global challenges, typically described under the umbrella of non-traditional security. The course comprises of three interlinked parts. First, a conceptual/theoretical explication of non- traditional security. Second, in-depth engagement with five non-traditional security topics climate change, migration, technology, gender equality, and food security. Three, hands-on opportunities to design topic- specific interventions.

The course deals with key issues in traditional and non-traditional security. It begins by asking two foundational questions: “What is security?” and “What is a national security strategy?” We will then go on to think about the core of traditional security – war and peace. New technologies have always affected the prospects of war and peace, so we will ask what is the impact of new technologies. International security depends on great power and regional conflicts, and so we will deal with these in the next segment. From there, we will round out traditional security by asking why states acquire nuclear weapons and how and why non-state actors turn to violence. We end the course by dealing with four non-traditional security areas – gender, migration, climate, and water. Throughout, we will be concerned with the causes/drivers of insecurity. We will also be concerned with how we can and should handle these challenges which affect the safety and welfare of the international system as a whole (international security), of states (national security), and of individuals and communities (human security).

This course focuses on how states formulate and implement their foreign policies. It is structured based on different levels of analysis: systems, state, leaders, bureaucracies/institutions, and society. The course analyses the various constraints that each of these actors face, how they interact with each other, and the processes and mechanisms through which they resolve their differences and formulate policy. It also examines the conditions in the implementation process that impact policy outcomes. Major themes include the state as rational actor, the role of personalities and their psychology, the impact of ideas and cultures, bureaucratic politics, and the role of interest groups and coalitions.

This course is an introduction to international economic development with applications to/examples from Asia, exploring selected aspects of Asian economic development. The focus is on developing simple analytical tools to understand the main factors associated with sustained economic growth, and macroeconomic, financial and trade policy issues that confront Asia in the world economy. Selected topics include investment in physical and human capital (health and education), technological change, capital flows and foreign direct investment, currency crises, and exchange rate regimes, access to finance and the role of institutions and governance, the interdependence between the growth process and the distribution of its opportunities (poverty and equity), conditional cash transfers, safety nets and social protection.

The Asia-Pacific is the most important region of the world with its economic vibrancy and strategic importance, and presents a plethora of important and puzzling security and economic challenges. In this course we will utilize various theoretical approaches to examine and explain a set of substantive issues in the international relations of the Asia-Pacific: US-China rivalry; territorial disputes; Taiwan issue; North Korean nuclear threat; Japan’s foreign policy; the so-called ‘history problem’ issue; ASEAN; security institutions; economic patterns; human rights; and environmental and aging society problem. In addition, we seek to understand the future trajectory of the Asia-Pacific.

This module is intended for individuals who are interested in the functions of the market in modern economies and who in the course of their careers may be in positions of regulating market behaviour for public policy purposes. The focus is to identify what makes the market imperfect or cause market failures. The course will also examine the appropriate form of governmental intervention.

The course looks at health and human development in the context of a global economy. We will study the large improvements in health that have occurred in the last two centuries due to rising incomes and technological advances in public health and heath care. These health improvements will be linked to human capital and increased worker productivity as well as longer life spans and savings for retirement. The effects of health on population growth and development will also be investigated. We will look at the welfare implications of health improvements, economic growth, and globalization.

Education is one of the most fundamental areas of policy, as education impacts many aspects of life and society. This module uses the theoretical and empirical tools of economics to study education and education policy. Major topics include the monetary and non-monetary benefits of education; educational inequality with respect to gender, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status; and policy issues such as compulsory schooling, girl-friendly schools, and school choice. Examples are drawn internationally.

This course seeks to explore the role of political leadership in economic policy and performance. It starts with a discussion of politics at the central level and introduces the merits and problems in the Chinese economic context. Students will be exposed to two major debates about control mechanisms in managing central-local relations: fiscal decentralization and promotion tournament. They will critically engage these two theories by examining some recent empirical works. This course concludes with four important issues facing today’s Chinese economy: urbanization, pollution, financial policy and corruption. Students will gain insights about policies that are crucial to China’s future growth.

Traditional economics, which is one of the key theoretical cornerstones of public policy, typically assumes that human behavior is rational, preferences are stable, and individuals are smart and unemotional. However, human behavior often deviates from standard assumptions due to psychological and social factors; analysis based on traditional economics can therefore misinform policies and lead to detrimental consequences. This course discusses behavioral regularities that are of potential importance for public policy. Students will be exposed to behavioral economic theory and its applications to public policy in the areas of savings, investment, healthcare, climate change, taxation, labor supply, and monetary policy. 

This course links the fields of macroeconomic and financial policies. It provides coverage of economic principles that underlie the operation of banks and other financial institutions. The role of money in the economy and the impact of the central bank and monetary policy on the macro-economy are emphasized, as is the understanding the foreign exchange market and some basics of monetary theory and international finance. The focus of this course is on analytics.

This course is an introduction to selected aspects of Asian economic development and the region’s interactions with the rest of the world. It will focus on developing simple analytical tools to understand key trends and macroeconomic, financial and trade policy issues that confront Asia in the world economy. Topics covered include sources of growth in the Newly Industrializing Economies (NIEs) in East Asia, the rise of China and India and their impact on the global trading system, foreign direct investment to Asia, currency crisis in Asia, Asia in the global financial system, and issues relating to Asian economic regionalism. 

This course introduces social policies – which are policies directed towards meeting a population’s social needs—can support better overall health of, as well as a more equitable distribution of health outcomes within, a population. Focusing on countries in Asia, students will be introduced to trends and challenges affecting population health, including but not limited to climate change, demographic shifts; income inequality; globalisation and migration. We will also examine how social policy across various domains (eg. education, public health, social support, and housing) affect population health, with a focus on socially vulnerable populations and health disparities

This course covers policy issues of modern ageing societies, with special emphases on social policy, families, and comparisons between Asian countries and Western countries. To tackle the complex issues, we discuss both relevant theories and empirical evidence from various disciplines including sociology, economics, public health, and human biology. The first section investigates the underlying causes of population ageing and presents trends in population age distributions around the globe. In the second section, we review old-age support provided by the government, the family, and the elderly themselves, and discuss challenges of providing the support. Lastly, the third section describes policy options to mitigate the consequences of population ageing and evaluates the policies.

This course aims to provide students with an understanding of some of the challenges and solutions to problems faced by developing countries across four key themes: public health, education, finance and financial technologies, and labour markets. The course will draw on recent advances in development economics and focus on new challenges faced by developing countries post-COVID-19. Students will develop a set of empirical tools that can be applied to the analysis of development related policy problems. This course will focus on empirical microeconomic development economics.

This module is based on the premise that the sustainability of the natural environment is a necessity for the sustainability of the economic system. Hence the module commences with how specific definitions and models in economics need to be modified in cognizance of certain laws of thermodynamics. The module is divided into four blocks. The first block concerns the introduction of pertinent concepts in economics and their adaptation in the context of the relevant laws of thermodynamics The second and third blocks deal with the application of the adaptations to policy issues respectively at the microeconomic level and the macroeconomic level. The fourth block deals with the synthesis between microeconomic and macroeconomic analyses and the synergy between policies at the different levels 

This module provides an overview of the economic theories and concepts most relevant to health and healthcare. It introduces students to the theories of consumer and producer behavior, the interaction of economic agents in competitive markets, and market failures, with a focus on their implications for health policy. Topics include demand for health and health care, health insurance, physician and hospital behavior, pharmaceutical markets, and other related topics. This course seeks to help students develop intuition for thinking about challenges facing health care systems in an economic framework by connecting theories to contemporary health policy issues and empirical work.

This module aims to introduce students to various issues confronting workers, employers, and institutions in the labour market. By familiarizing ourselves with the canonical theories in labour economics and econometrics, we will improve our capacity to understand the modern-day challenges to the labour market, including labor force participation, changing returns to education and job training, technological changes, mobility and migration, productivity and wage, discrimination, signaling in job search, and challenges entailing globalization. We will continue with an analysis of policy interventions implemented to resolve the issues, such as social welfare programs, anti-discrimination laws, immigration reform, minimum wage, and on-the-job training.

This project-based module allows students to develop innovative solutions to real-world policy problems. Students work in teams with external partners (government, corporate, incubators, non-profit organizations, foundations, etc.) to develop a concrete innovative “product" that addresses a specific public policy issue. Students work with their partner on a project. They participate in workshop-style lectures on key issues related to innovation including diffusion, disruption, and policy application, and on practical skills for policy innovation including design thinking, human-centered design, stakeholder analysis, and problem-solving processes. External partners reserve the right to select the student teams working on their proposed projects.

This course looks at pension systems design and public policy issues associated with retirement income provision in Singapore and internationally. It provides students with an understanding of different models of social security systems, the economics and finance of pensions, governments’ role in pension provision, and reform options. Topics covered include: rationale for state involvement; types of pension schemes; plan design and policy choices; Singapore’s Central Provident Fund scheme; fiscal sustainability of pension systems; distributional issues and risk sharing; recent reforms and policy developments; and international comparisons;. A special focus is given to the implications of population ageing on pension policy.

This course examines the concepts and theories pertaining to the introduction and governance of novel technologies in cities. We will explore innovative practices, analyse the environmental, societal, and economic impacts of various technologies and study analytical approaches that can aid us in devising smart policy solutions to utilise them while minimising their risks and unintended consequences. Some of the topics covered are: conceptions of future cities, risk and unintended consequences, design for socio-technical transitions, and governance of risks of novel technologies. We will analytically explore issues around crowdsourcing, sharing economy, 3d printing, ridesharing, autonomous systems, blockchains and automation.

The module brings students up to date on the state of the field of international trade – both theory and empirics, without relying on overly technical models. The first part provides an overall understanding of international trade theory – comparative advantage, gains and losses, scale and scope, exporting vs non-exporting firms, offshoring and outsourcing; the second part resolves some common misconceptions about trade often seen in the media, and highlights key lessons from the latest empirical research; the third part focuses exclusively on trade policy in Asia, with episodes from Japan, China, India, South Korea, Bangladesh, Indonesia, and others.

This course introduces game theoretic tools to examine strategic behavior and its consequences for a wide range of economic, political, and social applications. We develop important techniques to better navigate strategic interactions from decision-making under risk and uncertainty, collective decision-making, agenda setting and strategic voting, negotiating and bargaining, the value of common knowledge, information disclosure with signalling and screening, participating in auctions, and designing strategy proof mechanisms in practice. We also highlight the limitations of rationality in practice and develop strategic analysis and institutional design techniques in light of individual/collective decision-making given such empirical (ir-)regularities from behavioral economics.

Advancements in digitization, machine learning, artificial intelligence (AI), and other technological drivers have revolutionized and automated the labour market. Witnessing the phenomenon, public debates often centre on the possibility of a jobless future followed by a total automation of jobs. Should we be scared? Will technological changes lead to mass unemployment and civil unrest? This course aims to introduce students to the implications of technological changes in the labour market, through the lens of economics, organizational/human-resource management, sociology, demography, and other subfields of social science. One of the central themes of the course is the notion that technology holds heterogenous effects on the labour market constituents. In this course, we will delve into the sources of the heterogeneity. Next, we will evaluate the current individual-, firm-, and government- level efforts to regulate the reliance of workplace technologies and the pace of automation. We will brainstorm together the possible future policy and program agendas needed for our society to actively mitigate the costs to technological advancement while harnessing its benefits in the labour market.

This is a graduate-level elective, appropriate for masters and doctoral students in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and other departments with permission of the instructor.

This course is a broad introduction to organisations and management. It consists of lectures and discussions based on weekly reading assignments. Students will combine their practical knowledge with the class readings to gain new perspectives. The topics include data and decision-making, reengineering work, organisational structure, organisational network and institutional theories. Students are expected to keep up with the readings and be prepared to discuss them in class. Understanding organisations is important for public administration and decision making in public policy. Under new public management, we have to understand organisations outside the public sector as well as in the public sector.

This module provides a survey of energy transition and green transformation in Asia and related policy challenges from a global perspective. The module concentrates on three topics: (i) Energy sustainability challenges and the green transformation imperative; (ii) Efforts of Asian countries in renewable energy development; and (iii) International best practices in promoting green transformation and policy lessons for Asia/ASEAN countries.

This course aims to equip students with the concepts and analytical tools for designing policy to promote economic growth and sustainable prosperity in digital age. The course concentrate on five main areas: (i)Economic development strategy; (ii)Economic growth and productivity analysis; (iii) Globalization and economic growth; (iv) Digital transformation and (v)The energy revolution and sustainable development.

This course will provide students with an overview of how the environment affects health outcomes and health behaviors. Students will examine how policies that influence the various dimensions of the environment can affect population health, even if these policies do not directly target health as an outcome. For example, building a new expressway might have unanticipated negative effects on residents nearby due to the noise generated both by construction and car-traffic. Through this course, students will gain insights on how to integrate public health considerations into policy-making and planning, and help achieve better health and health equity in urban environments.

Increasing longevity and declining fertility rates have shifted the age distribution of populations around the globe. Economics of Ageing as a field has become increasingly important as many countries are facing rapid population ageing. This course will examine the economic challenges and opportunities associated with an ageing population eg. how the demographic shift affects labor supply and productivity, retirement saving and wealth, intergenerational transfers, social security and pension design, healthcare financing, long-term care. Students will gain an understanding of how demographic changes shape the economy, as well as policy responses to address the challenges of an ageing population.

The course examines why and how governments intervene in the development of urban areas. Students will review debates about a ‘good city’ should be and examine models of a ‘good city’ which have inspired planners past and present. We will examine the goals and urban interventions typically implemented as part of each model; as well as critiques. Students will be equipped with knowledge and skills to critically assess typical urban policies, plans and projects that contribute positively or otherwise to the many facets of a ‘good city’.

This is a course on intermediate macroeconomics that introduces students to important concepts and analytical tools frequently used by economists to tackle a range of macroeconomic issues that are relevant to businesses, governments and households. It examines issues relating to long-term growth as well as business cycles. Significant attention is paid to macroeconomic stabilisation (fiscal and monetary policy). The course also introduces some basic open macro economy issues such as balance of payments, exchange rates and currency crises. The aim will be to provide coherent analytical frameworks and theoretical foundations to understanding contemporary global macroeconomic policy challenges.

This course offers a comprehensive exploration of macroeconomic theory and policy from both national and global perspectives. Through case studies of advanced and emerging/developing economies, with a particular focus on China, and India. Students will examine the institutional similarities and differences that shape these countries' economic landscapes.

Behavioural Insights (BI) is a leading tool for policy makers in policy formulation, evaluation and public management. Internationally, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are prominent global champions of BI adoption in public policy and communications. This course introduces the BI lifecycle that includes scientific foundations, behavioural measurement, data collection, experimental design and messaging framing for policy communications.

Data analytics is a scientific approach to help organisations solve problems, make better decisions, and increase productivity. Despite its business origins, analytics has been applied in governments, hospitals, and even museums, spurning a $125 billion market. However, a significant number of analytics projects fail due, in part, to poor science (techniques), art (e.g., implementation, change management) or both. This module covers the critical success factors for organisations embarking on their analytics journeys with topics spanning: project scoping, psychometrics, statistical modelling, text analytics, and applications in government, people, and healthcare analytics.

This module covers the major topics of social survey research. It focuses on questionnaire design but also covers topics like sampling, survey modes, interpreting survey data, using survey evidence in decision- making, and research ethics. The course is practical: students will not only learn about questionnaire theory and survey methodology, but they will also use that knowledge in developing their own questionnaires. While focusing on public opinion and internet-based social science survey research, the skills covered in this course will also be applicable for market and organisational research, policymaker surveys, and more.

In this graduate course on prediction and forecasting, students will learn how to design, refine, and evaluate various models for prediction and forecasting using cross-sectional and time-series data. The emphasis will be on practical applications of forecasting concepts using Stata. Students will see applications in economics, budgeting, finance, and other quantitative fields.