Causal inference is required to answer diverse substantive questions: How does the demand for a product change when the price does or the online ratings do? How can we measure whether introducing technology in schools, universities and/or classrooms affects the performance of students? How will different IT-enabled features on digital platforms impact user behavior, engagement, and purchase? Many companies and governmental agencies ask and try to answer these questions of this type -which require causal inference--every day. This course introduces the fundamentals of causality and the appropriate language to ask and answer causal questions in a business context. The course materials focus on the ideas and on the intuition behind the fundamental tools used to measure causal effects, some hands-on work to get exposure to implementing these methods, as well as the ethical and regulatory issues around experimentation.

In this course we discuss emerging technologies which have the potential to significantly impact various industries. We will broadly study new technologies and the managerial, economical, and societal impact that they may pose from different viewpoints. These may include the managerial, organizational, industry or country level. We may also discuss technologies and their impact as a disruptive innovation through case studies. Central to the class will be an emerging technology that we will discuss at a deeper level. For example, this class may discuss the technical foundations for Blockchain or the hands-on applications of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR).