Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Efficient Empiricism: Streamlining Teaching, Research, And Learning In Empirical Courses, Tomas Dvorak, Simon Halliday, Michael O'Hara, Aaron Swoboda

Economics: Faculty Publications

The increasing importance of empirical analysis in economics highlights the need for efficient ways to bring these skills to the classroom. R Markdown is a new technology that provides a solution by integrating writing, statistical work and computation into a single document. R Markdown benefits students and instructors by streamlining teaching, research, and collaboration. We report on our use of R Markdown in undergraduate teaching, including core courses, electives, and senior theses. We discuss the costs and benefits of adoption, and explain the advantages of R Markdown in teaching reproducibility of empirical work, avoiding time-consuming and error-prone ‘cut and paste,’ …