Machine Learning with Applications in Economics

Welcome!

This workbook will accompany my Spring 2025 Economic Analytics course and is based on the textbook An Introduction to Statistical Learning (ISLR) which can be found here: https://www.statlearning.com/ (left for R instead of python).

While I’ll follow ISLR’s core concepts, my approach differs in two important ways:

Mathematical Foundations

ISLR favors a purely intuitive approach, but when the mathematical foundations are low-hanging fruit, I’ll have you explore them. This will:

• Build your confidence in mathematical reasoning
• Prepare you for graduate studies or advanced analytical work
• Help you understand why methods work, not just how to use them

Programming Approach

We’ll use the tidyverse ecosystem whenever possible instead of base R because:

• Tidyverse is specifically designed for modern data analytics
• It provides a more consistent and maintainable coding framework
• Its declarative style is better suited for data analysis workflows

Note: While you may encounter mixed base R and tidyverse code online, we’ll focus on tidyverse conventions to develop clean, professional coding practices.