BSoE Short Course "Effective Programming Practices for Economists"

Instructors:
Janoś Gabler & Hans-Martin von Gaudecker (both University of Bonn)

Learning objectives:
Modern didactics starts by defining a set of active knowledge you should have developed at the end of the course. The course contents are then derived from that and so is the teaching style. Finally, the things we require you to do in order to pass the course are designed to require exactly those skills that we hope you will develop.

We group the learning objectives into two categories:

• Methods (core concepts and abstract coding skills)
• Tools (specific programmes, which you may want to use in the long run or not)

We will now describe these in turn.

Methods

• Students master the basic techniques to make current and past versions of their research reproducible
• Students solve reasonably complex economic problems using the help of a computer
• Students are able to write correct code in an efficient manner employing modern software engineering techniques
• Students reason about the structure of economic data and handle such data efficiently

Tools

• Students use a shell for navigating the directory system and for starting programmes
• Students routinely use Git for version control and collaborating with coauthors
• Students manage economic data using basic pandas functionality
• Students automate repetitive tasks using Python
• Students run their analysis pipelines using pytask
• Students find solutions to specific programming problems through sensible use of AI, search engines, and websites like Stack Overflow

Time & venue:
Several days between September 23 and October 30, 2024 via Zoom:
September 23, 25, 27, 30,
October 7, 9, 30
Classes take place 9:30 - 13:00

Registration:
For Berlin School of Economics students: Please register through our website until September 16, 2024.
For all other: Please send an email to bsoe.office@hu-berlin.de until September 16, 2024.

Max. number of participants: 20

More information can be found in the course syllabus.