Restricted Elective

Students must read one restricted elective from a basket of courses on analytical tools and methodologies. The restricted list of courses may vary year-to-year based on faculty availability and course offerings. Examples of courses on analytical tools and methodologies:

PP5105 Cost Benefit Analysis in Public Policy

Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) is one of the most widely used tools in public policy to help decision-makers choose between different projects. As the name suggests, CBA is essentially a comparison of a project’s costs and benefits. The popularity of this tool is due to its intuitive and direct application. In this course, we will learn the fundamental concepts and techniques behind the application of CBA. The goal of this class is to equip students with theoretical knowledge that underpins CBA and the practical steps in conducting a CBA study.

PP5192 Data Analytics – Science, Art, and Applications

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.

PP5527 Game Theory & Strategic Decision-Making

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.

PP5530 Introduction to Coding for Public Policy using Python (4 units)

With the rapid advancement of technologies, the data available to us are becoming increasingly large and complex, making it difficult to analyse using traditional data-processing methods. In today’s data-driven world, industries and organisations must embrace the challenges of big data to generate valuable insights to solve real-world problems. The ability to analyse big data has become an invaluable asset in the field of public policy. This course provides a gentle introduction for practitioners to big data analytics. Using Python, students will get hands-on experience working with big data sets, and applying visualization & data analysis methods to generate policy insights.

PP5531 Introduction to Coding for Public Policy using R

This course provides an in-depth and practical introduction to fundamentals of data visualization and public communications. Students will learn how to use R, a versatile statistical programming language, to clean, organize, and visualise data, and to communicate and evaluate data visualisations for academic and professional purposes. This module also serves as a gateway to more advanced learnings in data science and analytics. No prior coding experience is required for this module.

PP5540 Survey Design for Researchers and Decision-makers

This course 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 organizational research, policymaker surveys, and more.

PP5543 Prediction and Forecasting for Public Managers

This introductory course will cover fundamental concepts and tools for forecasting quantitative information in the context of public policy and management. The goal is to equip students with practical skills essential for creating, comprehending, and assessing forecasts. Modern organizations are increasingly relying on sophisticated forecasts to plan better and manage risk. Throughout the course, we will leverage real-world examples, such as population and financial data, to explore and apply various forecasting techniques. Adopting a skill-oriented approach, the emphasis will be on hands-on exercises rather than theory. This course is specifically designed for students seeking proficiency in tools like Excel and Stata without requiring extensive background in advanced statistics and math.

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