Session 5: Causation vs. Correlation — Thinking Like an Economist
Note
Date: Thursday, 21 May 2026, 16:00–19:00
Business question
Is there a gender wage gap among market analysts — and if so, what explains it?
Learning goals
- Distinguish causal from associational claims
- Understand confounding and selection bias through concrete business examples
- See how adding controls changes an estimated gap — and what that means
- Critically evaluate causal claims in reports and media
Dataset
cps-earnings — 149,316 US workers from the 2014 Current Population Survey: hourly wage, gender, age, education, occupation. The gender wage gap is a textbook case for illustrating confounding.
Quarto skill introduced this session
Structuring an analytical narrative in Quarto: how to move from exploratory output to a coherent argument in a written report.
Important
Material will be available here before the session.