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54857-01 - Colloquium: Machine Learning for Economists and Business Analysts (3 CP)
| Semester | spring semester 2021 |
| Course frequency | Irregular |
| Lecturers | Anthony Strittmatter (anthony.strittmatter@unibas.ch, Assessor) |
| Content | Machine learning estimation methods gain more and more popularity. Compared to conventional estimation methods, machine learning can solve statistical prediction tasks in a data adaptive way. Furthermore, machine learning can deal with high-dimensional variable spaces in a relatively flexible way. Prediction methods are used in many different business and economic domains. Examples of prediction tasks are: The prediction of sales for a grocery store, such that logisticians can ship products before they are sold. The prediction of the probability to become drug addicted later in life, such that drug prevention programs can be targeted at adolescents with high risk. Besides predictions, economists and managers are often interested in causal questions. Examples of causal questions are: Do tweets by president Donald Trump influence the oil prices? What impact has lowering the central bank interest rate on GDP? Does participation in training programs reduce the unemployment duration? Machine learning cannot give us an automatic answer to causal questions without using an empirical design. Machine learning estimates can serve as input factors for these empirical designs. Furthermore, we can estimate heterogeneous effects with machine learning. The course covers different predictive and causal machine learning methods. A focus will be on the application of these methods in practical R programming session. Predictive Machine Learning: - Regularized Regression - Trees and Forests - Unsupervised Machine Learning Causal Machine Learning - Double Selection Procedure - Debiased Machine Learning - Causal Forests Optimal Policy Learning Reinforcement Learning |
| Learning objectives | 1) Students can distinguish between questions that can be answered with predictive and causal methods. 2) Students can implement predictive machine learning estimators in R. 3) Students can deploy machine learning methods to account for control variables. 4) Students can estimate heterogeneous effects with causal forests. 5) Students know different machine learning approaches that can be used to estimate decision rules and can apply these approaches to economic and business problems. |
| Bibliography | James, Witten, Hastie, and Tibshirani (2014) "An Introduction to Statistical Learning", Springer. Free download: http://www-bcf.usc.edu/~gareth/ISL/ Sendhil Mullainathan and Jann Spiess, 2017, Machine Learning: An Applied Econometric Approach, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 67-106. Susan Athey, 2017, Beyond Prediction: Using Big Data for Policy Problems, Science, 335 (6324), 483-485. Victor Chernozhukov, Denis Chetverikov, Mert Demirer, Esther Duflo, Christian Hansen, Whitney Newey, 2017, Double/Debiased/Neyman Machine Learning of Treatment Effects, American Economic Review, 107(5), 261-265. More literature references will be provided during the lecture |
| Comments | The course is for business and economics students. |
| Weblink | Weblink to ADAM |
| Admission requirements | Basic knowledge of statistics and econometrics. |
| Course application | Registration: Please enrol in MOnA. EUCOR-Students and students of other Swiss Universities have to enrol at the students administration office (studseksupport1@unibas.ch) within the official enrolment period. Enrolment = Registration for the exam! The course is limited to 24 participants. If an admission should not be possible for this reason, you will be notified after the deadline for enrollment, i.e. after March 29, 2021. |
| Language of instruction | English |
| Use of digital media | No specific media used |
| Interval | Weekday | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
| unregelmässig | See individual dates | ||
Dates
| Date | Time | Room |
|---|---|---|
| Monday 10.05.2021 | 12.15-18.00 | - Online Präsenz -, -- |
| Tuesday 11.05.2021 | 14.15-19.00 | - Online Präsenz -, -- |
| Tuesday 18.05.2021 | 14.15-19.00 | - Online Präsenz -, -- |
| Wednesday 19.05.2021 | 14.15-19.00 | - Online Präsenz -, -- |
| Thursday 20.05.2021 | 12.15-17.00 | - Online Präsenz -, -- |
| Modules |
Modul: Fachlich-methodische Weiterbildung (Doctoral Studies - Faculty of Business and Economics) |
| Assessment format | end-of-semester examination |
| Assessment details | Individual Home Assignment |
| Assessment registration/deregistration | Registration: course registration |
| Repeat examination | no repeat examination |
| Scale | Pass / Fail |
| Repeated registration | as often as necessary |
| Responsible faculty | Faculty of Business and Economics , studiendekanat-wwz@unibas.ch |
| Offered by | Faculty of Business and Economics |