MPV_ARPM: Applied Research in Public Policy Making

Lecturers:  Martin Guzi (martin.guzi@econ.muni.cz), Eugenio Levi (eugenio.levi@econ.muni.cz)
Office Hours: by appointment (Room 316)

Welcome to the course! 

We will be meeting on Mondays at 12:00 in Room P312.

The course is focused on problems related to labour market discrimination, income poverty and living wages, migration, and subjective well-being. The materials presented in the course are exclusively based on the recently published papers of recognized scholars. 

Grading
You can earn 100 points and your grade will depend on the overall score. Grading is based on short assignments (30 points), class presentation (20 points), two written assignments (2 x 10 points) and final exam (30 points). Grading: A 100-91 points, B 81 – 90 points, C  71 – 80 points, D  61 – 70 points, E  55 – 60 points, F  less than 55 points

Academic dishonesty
No copy-paste and no plagiarism is acceptable. Written assignments are a good practice to develop your communication and argumentation style. Always use your own language to express your ideas. If you are not sure how to reference and/or paraphrase, read this material (link). Do not forget to include your name, in every document you submit. Write clear, simple and short sentences. Avoid complicated text structures with no meaning. You can use Grammarly software to correct typos and simple grammar mistakes. Submit text that makes a good impression of your work.

Class presentation (max 20 points)
Each student will be responsible to elaborate empirical research paper into class presentations. Papers are assigned to students during the first two weeks of the semester. Papers are uploaded in the study materials folder and the schedule of presentations is posted in the interactive syllabus. Presentations are about ten minutes long. Students shall send slides 24 hours before the presentation to the lecturer for the review (you may send slides earlier to receive useful feedback from the lecturer on how to improve your presentation). Please do not forget to upload your final presentation to the homework folder.

Presentation is graded accordingly:
• (max 5 points) Explanation of the research question and methods (explain what authors do, why it is important and how they do it). Main findings of the paper are well communicated to students.
• (max 5 points) Delivery and overall impression: language is correct, student highlights the important information during the presentation.
• (max 5 points) Bring your own ideas to the presentation. Adopt alternative materials or comment on weak points of a paper or propose possible extensions.
•  (max 5 points) At the end of your presentation formulate two multiple-choice questions with exactly four options but only one correct answer to ask students. The originality and creativity of questions are valued. Some students' questions will be adopted for the final examination.
•  (max 2 points) Formalities: The presentation fits into the allocated time frame, all sources are described and there are not many typos. 

Short lecture assignments (max 30 points)
Short assignments are posted in the interactive syllabus after the lecture. These may take different formats and you will have 10 days to submit each assignment.

Two written assignments (max 2 x 10 points)
During the semester students shall attend (at least) two online webinars and elaborate two critical summaries. You are free to choose a webinar from the list of webinars or you may also propose other interesting webinars to the class (after consultation with lecturers). Your task is to summarize and critically assess the main contribution and methods of the presented research (read guidelines). The critical summary should be around 700 words and you should upload it to the homework folder within 2 weeks after attending the webinar.

Final exam (max 30 points)
The final exam is organized in the last week of the semester on December 13, 2021 (Monday) at 12:00. Please make sure that you can attend the class on this date. The exam will include questions similar to those in short lecture assignments and questions from students class presentations. 

All the best, good health and a cheerful mind!

Please report any error to martin.guzi@econ.muni.cz.