NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF LESOTHO

Course Outline 2022/2023

Course Title: Data Science for Economists

Course Code: EC4401 No. of credits: 14
Department: Economics Faculty: FSS
Pre-requisite Course Code: EC3305- Co-requisite Course Code: N/A
11/3306-11
Course Coordinator/Instructor: Dr Denis N. Yuni and Dr Moshoeshoe
Email: dn.yuni@nul.ls Telephone: Ext. 3582
Course Type

X Core Course Compulsory Elective

Offer in the academic year

X 1st Semester 2nd Semester Year Long

Contact Hours: 3 hours per week Notional Hours: 144

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 Course Description
Data Science for Economists is designed to equip students with practical hands-on skills
that should give the students adequate proficiency in data handling, management, analysis and
graphing in general. This course will be highly practical and will introduce the students to
applications in R programming and STATA software. Though the course has the potential to
equip the students with general data management skills, applications will be streamlined to
economic theories and concepts. The course aims to prepare the students for the job market
that currently demands proficient data handlers.

Course Objectives
The broad objective is to provide a sound foundation in data handling, management and
analysis of economic theories for final-year students. Specifically, The course will
1. Introduce students to the R programming and STATA software
2. Expose students to data applications of economic theories using R programming and
STATA software
3. Improve their ability to interpret and communicate their understanding of data analysis.

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 Course Content (Lecture Topics)
1. Introduction WG- Chapter 1
• What is this course about? (data management, exploratory data analysis, & applied
econometrics with R)
• What is R? What is RStudio?
• Base R versus R packages
• Installing and Loading R packages
• What is the difference between data management and data science?

2. Getting Started with R GW GG-CHAP 2,3; WG-Chap 2, 4, 6, & 16; H Chapter 1

•R User Interface
•R basics: R Script; R as a calculator; Executing commands; Assignment; Quitting R;
Getting help in R; File management
• Objects in R: what is an object?; vectors; types of vectors; handling objects in R; Calling
functions in R; Lists
• Import data from an Excel file into R

3. Introduction to R Markdown

4. Data exploration with R (using ggplot2) WG- Chapters 1 & 5; H Chapter 1.5
• Summary statistics
• Cross tabulations
• Statistical Transformation

5. Data Visualisation AI – Chaps 7,9,10,12; WG – Chap 1

• Introduction to Data Visualisation
• Visualising data distributions
• Robust summaries

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6. Data transformation (with 1) tidyverse and 2) data.table) MD; WG Chapter

7. Data wrangling (with 1) tidyverse and 2) data.table) AI Chap 21,22,23; MD; WG

Chapter 8
• How to import data into R and tidy it
• How to export R data to other formats (e.g. csv, tab delimited, excel, stata formats
(.dta))
• Joining Tables

TEST 1: TBC

8. Programming Basics MD; AI

• Conditional expressions;
• Defining functions
• Name spaces
• For-loops
• Vectorization and functionals: Intro to Functions; and Functions in R (advanced)

9. Web Scraping and Text mining HAGS Chap 14; H - Chap 10–12

10. Statistics with R DM – Chap 2,5

• Probability
• Random Variables
• Statistical Inference

11. Regression analysis (with cross-sectional data) in R HAGS Chap 2-8; H Chap 4-8
• The Simple Regression Model
• Multiple Regression Analysis: Estimation & Inference

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• Multiple Regression Analysis with qualitative regressors
• Heteroskedasticity

12. Spatial Analysis in R MD – Chap 2,5

• Introductory concepts
• Introduction to Spatial Analysis

13. Introduction to Stata MM – Chap 2,3,4

• Introduction to the software
• Data Management

TEST 2: TBC

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Course Learning Outcomes (CLO) Aligned Learning Programme
Student who successfully complete the course will be Outcomes (BA Economics)
able to:

1. Demonstrate in a class project application of 1. Produce high quality graduates

appropriate data analysis methods to test employable by the public and

economic theory including deriving and test a private sectors locally, regionally
specific hypothesis relevant to a general and internationally;
economic or policy question.
2. Empower our graduates to
2. Identify problems in data analysis and contribute to the economic, social
interpretation arising from methodological or and political well-being of their
data problems. nations.

3. Identify and use the correct statistical

technique to test hypotheses for different
types of variables.

4. Interpret and analyse regression estimates

and make predictions about economic
phenomena.

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 Evaluation

There will be at least four (group) problem sets, quizzes, one (1) mid-term exam and a final exam. Class
attendance is not required but highly encouraged. I will give 5 percentage points for class attendance
and class participation that will be taken at random. Students are expected to participate in our class
meetings by being attentive, by asking questions, by answering questions posed by classmates and by
the instructor.

The weight of coursework is 33%, and that of the final exam is 67%. No makeup midterm exam will be
given other than to those with an excused absence and/or serious emergencies (medical and/or family).
Any such emergencies should be reported to (and verified by) the Dean of Student Affairs (DSA) before
a special make-up can be given.

Course Teaching and Learning Aligned Learning Programme

Activities (CTLA) Outcomes (ALPO)

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Approach

There will be 3 contact hours of formal lectures

each week. The course uses a combination of
lectures, practical sessions and class discussions.
Students are expected to participate fully in
interactive class discussions.

Activities to Meet the Objectives

Students will need to read widely and critically to

enrich their learning experience; complete
coursework assignments; participate in interactive
classroom discussions and perform successfully in
examinations.

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Main Texts

Required
Grolemund G. (2014). Hands-on programming with R. Chrome-
extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://d1b10bmlvqabco.cloudfr
ont.net/attach/ighbo26t3ua52t/igp9099yy4v10/igz7vp4w5su9/OReilly_Hands
On_Programming_with_R_2014.pdf [FREE!](GG)
Wickham, H. & Grolemund, G., (2018). R for Data Science: Import, Tidy, Transform,
Visualize, and Model Data.. OReilly Media. Retrieved from
http://r4ds.had.co.nz/ [FREE!](WG)
Irizarry R. A. (2019). Introduction to Data Science Data Analysis and Prediction
Algorithms with R. Retrieved from https://b-
ok.africa/s/?q=Irizarry+R.+A.+%282019%29.+Introduction+to+Data+Science
+Data+Analysis+and+Prediction+Algorithms+with+R+. [FREE!] (AI)
McDermott Grant. Data Science for Economists and Other Animals.
https://grantmcdermott.com/ds4e/.
[FREE!] (MD)

Heiss, F. (2016). Using R for Introductory Econometrics. Retrieved from

http://www.urfie.net/read.html
[FREE!]. (H).
Mitchell M. (2020). Data Management Using Stata. https://b-
ok.africa/book/11273449/c146f2.
[FREE!]. (MM).

Recommended Texts:

. Kleiber, C., & Zeileis, A. (2008). Applied Econometrics with R. Springer-Verlag, New York.

(KZ)

Hanck, C., Arnold, M., Gerber, A., & Schmelzer, M. (2018). Introduction to Econometrics
with R. Retrieved from https://www.econometrics-with-r.org/ [FREE!]. (HAGS)

Required Software and Hardware:

• Software [FREE!] Instructions on downloading software can be found here, Mike Marin

youtube videos.

Please install the following software on your laptop:

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 • R

• R Studio

• Stata

• Hardware

Please bring in laptop with the above software installed for lectures.

Course Policy
Students and staff of NUL are expected to demonstrate high commitment to honesty, integrity,
and professionalism. Any cheating such as test/examination malpractice or misconduct and
plagiarism are strictly forbidden at NUL. Plagiarism is defined as ‘the form of cheating which
consists of using the ideas or work of another person or persons as if they were one’s own
without giving proper credit to the source’ (NUL draft Policy and procedures on cheating and
plagiarism, 2012:1). All forms of academic cheating are harshly punished at NUL. The claim of
ignorance of cheating is no basis of excuse!

Signature: Dr Denis Yuni and Dr R. Moshoeshoe Date: September 2022

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