Data Analysis for Policy Making

Course Description

With each year unprecedented quantities of digital data are being open. In Ukraine, for instance, we recently received access to the database of public procurement, register of all enterprises and their owners, declarations of public officials, etc. This wealth of data about human behavior and organizations allows to build and test quantitative models to understand and solve social problems. This evidence-based approach to policy-making is already used by the Ministry of Economic Development that employs ProZorro database to develop new legislation as well as the National Bank of Ukraine that employs web scraping to monitor prices in the real time. In this course, you will examine real-world examples of how analytics have been used to answer policy questions. These examples include:

• the effect of economic blockade of Crimea imposed by Ukraine,
• identification of factors that predict the rebel violence in Donbass,
• classification of enterprises that use complaints to the Antimonopoly Committee to win public procurement auctions,
• identification of groups inside the Ukrainian Parliament that have common interests and tend to cooperate in voting.

Through these examples, we will teach you the following analytics methods: exploratory data analysis, visualization, linear regression, trees, clustering and social network analysis. We will be using the statistical software R to build models and work with data. In the end of this course you will be offered to work in groups on a project. You will be equipped with relevant skills to collect, analyze and present your own data in order to research and evaluate social policies.

Course topics

Social data science, Evidence-based policymaking, Exploratory data analysis, Regression analysis, Cluster analysis, Social network analysis.

Course tools

R, RStudio.

Prerequisites

Statistical Inference, basic familiriaty with programming in R.

Lecturers

Dr. Tymofii Brik

Assistant Professor at the Kyiv School of Economics, Ukraine Tymofii Brik a researcher in sociology and economic history. An Assistant Professor at the Kyiv School of Economics, he received his PhD with honors from Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and master’s degrees from Utrecht University (the Netherlands) and Kyiv Taras Shevchenko University (Ukraine). His research interests are religious markets, long-term social mobility, and social network analysis. He is also a co-founder of a social restaurant, Urban Space 500, and a member of the supervisory board of CEDOS. Social mobility, religious studies, economic history, social network analysis. Contacts: tbrik@kse.org.ua tymobrik.com

Oleksa Stepaniuk

Data analyst at the Kyiv School of Economics, Ukraine Oleksa Stepaniuk is a part of a research group studying electronic public procurement system ProZorro. This system is an example of successful effort to reduce the corruption level in Ukraine using online marketplace technologies and data analysis. Their primary activity is to act as an independent analytical center for the Department of Public Procurement at the Ministry of Economic Development. Among other things, they designed a new auction mechanism for ProZorro.Sales, developed (in cooperation with MEDT) a new procedure for challenging the results of auctions in the Antimonopoly Committee, evaluated the ProZorro system implementation, analyzed the behavior strategies of the auction participants, etc. Their research is quoted in the Financial Times, Foreign Policy as well as in the best Ukrainian media. Machine larning, game theory, agent-based models. Contacts: ostepaniuk@kse.org.ua www.facebook.com/oleksa.stepaniuk www.linkedin.com/in/oleksa-stepaniuk-955a99b4/