PUBPOL 2101

Statistics for Public Policy

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2025-2026 Catalog.

Statistics for Public Policy introduces basic statistical techniques used by researchers to investigate social, economic, and political phenomena. Topics include data presentation and descriptive statistics, measures of central tendency and dispersion, random variables and their probability distributions, joint and conditional distributions, expected value, conditional expectation, statistical sampling and inference, interval estimation and confidence intervals, hypothesis testing using t distributions, correlation, and bivariate regression analysis. A mandatory review section accompanies the course lectures. In problem sets and exams, students calculate statistics by hand to develop familiarity with data analysis. They also learn and apply basic commands using Stata statistical software.

Forbidden Overlaps AEM 2100, BTRY 3010, BTRY 6010, CEE 3040, CRP 1200, ENGRD 2700, HADM 2010, HADM 2011, ILRST 2100, ILRST 6100, MATH 1710, PSYCH 2500, PUBPOL 2100, PUBPOL 2101, SOC 3010, STSCI 2100, STSCI 2150, STSCI 2200. In addition, no credit for MATH 1710 if taken after ECON 3130, ECON 3140, MATH 4720, or any other upper-level course focusing on the statistical sciences

Enrollment Information Enrollment limited to: Brooks school undergraduate students.

Distribution Requirements (MQL-AG, OPHLS-AG), (MQR-HE)

Last 4 Terms Offered 2025FA, 2024FA, 2023FA, 2022FA

Learning Outcomes

• Employ basic numeric and visualization tools to describe data.
• Apply inferential statistical analysis to policy-relevant research questions.
• Conduct statistical evaluations of US census data in computing environment.
• Critique methodological approaches to social scientific research.

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