AØKK08325U Seminar: Empirical Health Economics

Volume 2014/2015
Education
M.Sc, of Economics
(Only available for Master students at Department of Economics)
Content

The purpose of the course is to train the students’ abilities to understand health as an economic concept and carry out empirical analyses on health (micro) data using relevant econometric techniques. Specifically, we shall use the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (http://www.share-project.org/) to carry out the empirical projects.

Learning Outcome

  1. Generally, the topics are bounded to empirical strategies that can be pursued within the SHARE database. These include inequalities in health, risk behaviors, measurement of health, retirement in Europe, Ageing and health policies. For further inspiration students are encouraged to view the long list of publications carried out on SHARE data.

    http:/​/​www.share-project.org/​publications/​journalarticles0.html

    A central part of the course will be to apply methods on real data, specifically SHARE. Therefore, the students will be obliged to meet data access requirements laid out by SHARE

    http:/​/​www.share-project.org/​data-access-documentation/​easyshare.html). SHARE has made the survey ”easySHARE” available for teaching purposes.

    If students have an alternative and appropriate micro dataset (which include health information) set up by the beginning of the course, they can use it instead of SHARE. In that case, the student should contact the teacher by the course start, in order to determine the data’s relevance.

  • Health Economics, Jay Bhattacharya, Timothy Hyde and Peter Tu. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Introductory Econometrics: A modern Approach, Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, South-Western
B.Sc. of Economics
The students should have knowledge of Econometrics B and knowledge of Health Economics and Advanced Micro econometrics would be beneficial but not necessary.
Planning meeting ind the begining of the semester,informed by the teacher, writing seminar paper during the semester and presentations at the end of the semester. More informations will be uploaded at Absalon by the teacher.

The structure of the course will be as follows:
1. Introduction: The course will be introduced by 1-2 lectures in the beginning of the semester (which outline the main idea and the relevant literature).
2. Student presentation: there will be a two-days workshop in April / May where students present their term paper (see below).
3. Term paper: students are required to write a 12-page paper on a subject of their choice within one of the course’s main themes. The paper has to be handed in within 2 weeks after the workshop presentations. The paper can take various forms. One possibility is to thoroughly analyze and discuss an influential article on the selected topic. A second possibility is that students perform their own empirical investigation, based on the data underlying the selected article or based on additional data that students assemble themselves. Third, students can propose an experimental design / empirical strategy to address a new research question on their topic of interest. In the latter cases, the teacher will assist students with the empirical design and analysis.
  • Category
  • Hours
  • Exam
  • 0,3
  • Seminar
  • 0
  • Total
  • 0,3
Credit
7,5 ECTS
Type of assessment
Written assignment
Oral examination, 20 min under invigilation
A written seminar paper and a oral presentation for the others participans at the seminar.
Exam registration requirements
Attendance on the seminar. The mandatory commitment paper and seminar paper have been handed in at deadline.
Aid

Al aids for the written seminarpaper.

For the oral presentation the slices for the presentation. The teacher can specifiy what els is allowed.

Marking scale
7-point grading scale
Censorship form
External censorship
up to 20 % censorship at the seminarpaper
Exam period
Is decided and informed by the teacher at the compulsive planningmeeting.
Re-exam
As ordinary.
Criteria for exam assesment

The student must in a satisfactory way demonstrate that he/she has mastered the learning outcome of the course.