Empirical Work
Empirical work at the Chair of Empirical Economics
Working with empirical datasets is integrated in the courses we offer in the Master and Bachelor program:
BA: Statistics/BA: Econometrics: Based on a survey we collect data on all students participating in the statistics course. We work with these data in the lecture and the practical sessions to illustrate and apply statistical methods. The collected data are provided for all students in anonymized form. Based on other real datasets students can apply the statistical and econometric methods taught in the lecture.
MA: Microeconometrics/MA: Public Policy Evaluation: The students apply the econometric methods taught in the lecture and implement them in STATA. Based on real data, the students work on research questions in the field of labor economics.
Thesis: Within the scope of an upcoming thesis we enable students to work with a representative German dataset to study empirical research questions.
Why you should study with us
The Chair for Empirical Economics works predominantly with econometric models and empirical data. The aim ist to reveal coherences and to evaluate economic theories based on empirical data. The research interests of the chair are in the fields of labor economics, policy evaluations, impact of personality traits on economic outcomes and entrepreneurship.
Which data can we provide?
We provide a 50% sample of the German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
The SOEP is a representative annual survey since 1984. The dataset provides information regarding the topics of income, employment, education, and personality.
How to get access to the data?
In order to provide access to the data we need:
- a signed data privacy statement (provided at our chair),
- your username of your university account, so that we can provide access to the server.
Where can you access the data?
You can work with the data in the computer labs (rooms 3.01.150 and 3.01.165a) of the University of Potsdam. The computers are all equipped with the statistical software STATA.
For data protection reasons, it is only possible to work with the data at the computers of the university. You are not allowed to either copy or share the data.