Summer School: Methods of Causal Inference, University of Ljubljana (July 6-10, 2025)

[rok....@ef.uni-lj.si]

Most empirical results are fragile. Yours shouldn’t be.

I am pleased that I will teach Methods of Causal Inference at the Ljubljana Doctoral Summer School 2026, University of Ljubljana, School of Economics and Business between July 6 and 10.

Methods of Causal Inference is an intensive five-day course focused on how to move from correlations to convincing identification. The course is designed for researchers who want to push beyond standard approaches and build work that stands up to serious scrutiny. 

What we will cover:

- Synthetic control and its modern extensions
- Synthetic DiD and matrix completion methods
- Event-study design under staggered treatment
- Matching estimators and regression discontinuity design (RDD)
- Robust inference, placebo tests, and design diagnostics
- How to design empirical strategies that survive serious scrutiny, by making the counterfactual explicit, testable, and defensible

What we actually do:

We take research designs apart and rebuild them, focusing on identification, not just estimation. The goal is simple, to push the empirical results to the level that a skeptical referee cannot easily dismiss.

Who should apply:

PhD students, postdocs, scholars, early-stage faculty, data scientists and applied researchers aiming for publication-level empirical work.

If you want your empirical strategy to be as strong as your research question, this course is for you. 

How to apply:👇

https://shortprogrammes.ef.uni-lj.si/short_programmes/doctoral_summer_school/online_courses/

Course syllabus is enclosed in the attachment below.

Best wishes,

Rok Spruk