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• A preliminary distance training component will be provided in May, 2012.
• The actual training workshop will take place in Quebec City, from June 3 to June 23, 2012.
• Teaching and material will be dispensed in English - although teaching staff are also proficient in French.

Week 1 : June 3 - June 9, 2012

Preliminary Course Plan   |   Timetable (identical for all courses)

This course trains participants in the conduct of rigorous evaluations of the impact of social policies or programs on targeted populations. Through either an experimental or non-experimental approach, trainees will learn to collect and compare data on both treatment and valid comparison groups, to ultimately produce crucial empirical evidence on the actual efficiency/success of specific policies and/or program interventions in achieving their expected outcomes.

It involves:

• An introduction to the micro-econometric approach to impact evaluation, the notion of counterfactual, the parameters of interest
• An introduction to social experiments: theory and practical issues
• An introduction to non-experimental impact evaluation: difference-in-difference, matching and regression discontinuity techniques

At the end of this course, participants will:

• learn methodological and practical aspects of policy impact evaluation research;
• understand the advantages and challenges of each of the techniques involved in impact evaluation research;
• be able to choose the appropriate evaluation approach in different contexts;
• interpret and communicate the evaluation results to both academic and non-academic audiences

Led by Habiba Djebbari, the course will draw on the assistance of
Fabio Veras, Maria Adelaïda Lopera.

The courses will be taught in English. English language proficiency is required.

Week 2 : June 10 – June 17, 2012

Preliminary Course Plan   |   Timetable (identical for all courses)

This course teaches participants how to use monetary and non-monetary approaches for measuring and analyzing poverty. It also introduces a number of specific technical tools that are useful to prepare reliable and robust poverty profiles as well as to understand and forecast the impact on poverty of changes in various economic and non-economic factors.

It involves:

• A review of the concepts for the measurement of well-being;
• An introduction to methods for measuring and comparing monetary and multidimensional poverty;
• An introduction to the construction and estimation of poverty lines;
• A demonstration of normatively and statistically robust methods for understanding poverty;
• An introduction to methods for carrying out poverty and social impact analysis.

At the end of this course, participants will:

• Understand the features, the advantages and the disadvantages of the main approaches to measuring and analyzing well-being;
• Have constructed poverty profiles that are reliable and robust both from a measurement and from a statistical perspective, using case studies and national survey databases;
• Be able to estimate monetary poverty lines;
• Be familiar with the use of ordinal and qualitative indicators of well-being and be introduced to the construction of composite indices of poverty;
• Be able to model and discuss the impact of some policies and shocks on well-being and poverty.

Led by Jean-Yves Duclos, the course will draw on the assistance of
A. Araar, L.-M. Asselin, P. Ballon, Y. Batana, S. Bibi, J. Cockburn, J.-Y. Duclos, L. Tiberti, S. Younger

The courses will be taught in English. English language proficiency is required.

Week 3 : June 17 – June 23, 2012

Preliminary Course Plan   |   Timetable (identical for all courses)  

This course teaches participants how to build and use general equilibrium simulation models to analyze the impact of economic policies and macroeconomic shocks on agents and economies.

It involves:

• A review of the basic elements of producer/consumer theory and general equilibrium analysis;
• An introduction to the construction and use of a “Social Accounting Matrix” (SAM), which is used as the empirical basis for simulation models;
• An introduction to the GAMS software – the main tool used by the international scientific community in the construction and use of Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models;
• A step-by-step construction of a basic general equilibrium model – starting from a relevant theoretical background, and then developing a statistical database, producing appropriate computer codes, and interpreting results.

At the end of this course, participants will:

• Understand the logic and utility of CGE models to analyze economic problems of developing and developed economies;
• Understand the data requirements and statistical needs of implementing such models;
• Have a basic command of the GAMS software;
• Be able to understand the economic logic underlying CGE models;
• Be able to interpret and explain results generated by CGE analysis.

Led by Bernard Decaluwé, the course will draw on the assistance of
A. Lemelin, H. Maisonnave, A. Martens, S. Mathouraparsad, V. Robichaud, L. Tiberti

The courses will be taught in English. English language proficiency is required.

A variety of special events adds to the learning experience that is gained in the formal course work. This includes an opening dinner with introductory speeches given by development specialists and School organizers, and a closing dinner in historic Old Quebec City (which is one of UNESCO’s famous World Heritage Sites and the only walled city in North America).

Classroom attire is business casual. More formal dress is encouraged for the opening and closing dinners.