|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
See also the panel on How Big Data is Changing Economics with Susan Athey and Hal R. Varian at the Becker Friedman Institute. Available at http://bit.ly/1cSwCGM.
We acquire fundamental software engineering skills to tackle computer-intensive economic research projects. These basic techniques allow us to leverage tools from computational science, increase the trans- parency of our implementations, and ensure the recomputability of results. Thus, they expand the set of possible economic questions that we can address and improve the quality of our answers.
The Python programming language is accessible to novice programmers seeking to develop software engineering skills, and powerful enough for serious computation. Python is used by computer programmers and scientists alike. Thus, it provides the tools used in software engineering as well as numerous libraries for scientific computing. In addition, Python is an open source project easily linked with other languages such as Fortran and C.
Website: https://www.python.org
Ubuntu is a Linux-based operating system. It is based on the principle of open-source development and users are encouraged to use free software, study how it works, improve upon it, and distribute it. Using Ubuntu serves as a preparation for the use of high performance computing clusters, who mostly rely on Linux-based operating system.
Website: http://www.ubuntu.com
Git is a free and open source distributed version control system designed to handle everything from small to very large projects with speed and efficiency. It allows to organize code revision in a logical and coherent way and thus ensures recomputability of results. GitHub is a web-based Git repository hosting service, which offers all of the distributed revision control and source code management (SCM) functionality of Git as well as adding its own features.
Website: http://www.git-scm.com https://github.com
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing platform which provides the power and scalability required for collaboration, high performance computation, and data-intensive processing. Class participants receive access to the cloud using Microsoft Azure Academic Passes for six months.
Website: http://research.microsoft.com/azure
The grmToolbox is a computer program for the simulation and estimation of the generalized Roy model (Eisenhauer et al., 2015). It is designed as a teaching tool to show how, by acquiring software engineering skills, econometricians can more readily absorb research from computational science, improve the transparency of implementations, and ensure recomputability of results.
Website: http://grmToolbox.github.io
The Quantitiative Economics website provides a series of lectures on quantitative economic modelling using Python. Topics include economic theory and empirics, mathematical and statistical concepts related to quantitative economics, algorithms and numerical methods for studying economic problems, and coding skills.
Website: http://quant-econ.net
The Computation Institute is a joint initiative between the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory to advance science through innovative computational approaches. It is a resource center for those collecting and analyzing large quantities of data and detailed numerical simulations of complex phenomena.
Website: https://www.ci.uchicago.edu
Social Sciences Computing Services is made up of several distinct support teams that provide several services to the Social Sciences Division such as Desktop and Server Support.
Website: https://sscs.uchicago.edu
The Research Computing Center is dedicated to providing the University of Chicago community a full-service high-performance computing (HPC) center, including visualization resources, access to software, workshops, one-on-one consulting with domain experts, and complete data-management strategies to researchers across all departments and divisions.
Website: https://rcc.uchicago.edu
Mail: eisenhauer@policy-lab.org
Web: http://www.policy-lab.org/peisenha
Repository: https://github.com/peisenha
Eisenhauer, P., Heckman, J. J., and Vytlacil, E. J. (2015). The Generalized Roy Model and the Cost-Benefit Analysis of Social Programs. Journal of Political Economy, 123(2):413-443.