What's next?

I often have students who have taken econ 570 or 770 and would like to continue learning more. Some students go on to formally study in a degree program, but some people would like to keep learning on their own. Below are some thoughts. I do not have material prepared on these topics, but the internet if full of tutorials, blog posts, and videos. If you find something particularly useful, let me know!

1. Learn more about the tradeoffs of using different file formats: csv, HD5, parquet, pickle... These tradeoffs become important as you work with larger datasets.

2. Dig into interactive plots. As more research goes online there are more opportunities to make your visualizations interactive. Interactive plots are also helpful in the "pre-research" phase when you are exploring data.

3. Spend some time learning more about coding, per se. Learning more about object-oriented programming, and how it works in python would be a good place to start.

4. Learn about version control software like git/github. This is useful when you code as part of a team or when coding big projects. Professional coders all use these kinds of tools.

Bigger lifts

1. Learn some machine learning tools, but do so as an economist would. A big comparative advantage of being trained as an economist is that you understand causality. My friends in industry tell me that instrumental variables, synthetic controls, and double/debiased machine learning are popular.

2. Brush up on demand estimation. If you are working outside of finance, firms are often most concerned with forecasting demand.

This page is a work in progress. If you have suggestions, please let me know!