Decision Analytics for Business and Policy
Units: 12
Most courses under the name of ``analytics'' are about making predictions. However, predictions alone are not sufficient to solve problems. We need to produce decisions. This course focuses on the process of making good decisions.
This course assumes intermediate python experience and prior exposure to management science and operations research topics. It focuses on modeling frameworks and computational tools to address complex decision-making problems that arise in policy and business. The course is organized by technical topics, from contextual optimization, optimization under uncertainty, to dynamic learning and optimization. We motivate our technical discussions by a rich set of applications, such as logistics planning, resource allocation, and health care. Coding will be done in Python. Students will use a range of modern optimization and machine learning packages.
Being able to recognize decision problems and formally solve it (with a proper, mathematical model, and code implementation).
(1) An introductory course in management science / operations research, (2) intermediate Python
programming skills, (3) basic data and mathematical maturity.