e-Lectures: Econ 481

These are the recorded lectures of Econ 481-3, Topics in Econometrics, at Northwestern University. These videos were recorded while the class was being taught over Zoom in the Spring 2021, but any type of student participation was edited out. As a result of the editing, the lectures are shorter than a live lecture and some parts may involve unnatural transitions. The purpose of these recordings is to provide additional resources to students taking Econ 481-3 in future years, but the material here is public and free to use for students elsewhere at their own risk. The slides, lectures notes, and videos may be printed and reproduced for individual or instructional use, but may not be used for any type of commercial purposes.

The syllabus of the class is below and each lecture has a companion set of slides and lecture notes.

Syllabus | Incomplete Lecture Notes | Class Canvas Page


Part I: Instrumental Variables 101


Lecture 1: Selection on Observables

Slides | Lecture Notes


Lecture 2: Roy Models and LATE

Slides | Lecture Notes


Lecture 3: Marginal Treatment Effects

Slides | Lecture Notes


Lecture 4: Extrapolation and Extensions

Slides | Lecture Notes


Lecture 5: Outcome Tests via MTEs

Slides | Lecture Notes


Part II: Understanding Asymptotic Approximations


Lecture 6: Local Asymptotics

Slides | Lecture Notes


Lecture 7: Contiguity

Slides | Lecture Notes


Lecture 8: Local Asymptotic Normality

Slides | Lecture Notes


Lecture 9: Convolution Theorems

Slides | Lecture Notes


Part III: Uniformly Valid Inference with Moment Inequalities


Lecture 10: The Bahadur-Savage Problem

Slides | Lecture Notes


Lecture 11: Uniformity of the t-test

Slides | Lecture Notes


Lecture 12: Uniformity of Subsampling

Slides | Lecture Notes


Lecture 13: Inference in Moment Inequality Models I

Slides | Lecture Notes


Lecture 14: Inference in Moment Inequality Models II

Slides | Lecture Notes


Part IV: Regression Discontinuity Design


Lectures 15 to 18: RDD

These lectures involved students’ presentations and therefore are unfortunately not publicly available