In the modern world of public policy analysis the “impact evaluation” perspective is the dominant question: how to measure, to estimate and to infer the causal effect of a public policy on an “outcome”? This question plays a fundamental role in modern government and in international organizations on today. Participants will learn the major concepts and tools used by public policy specialists for “causal reasoning” and the quantitative evaluation of policies. Among the concepts covered by the course are “counterfactuals”, “potential outcomes”, “treatment effects”, “before/after effects”. Participants will learn the basics of the so-called “Rubin model” and how statistical models can help when the data are coming from non-experimental frameworks, a situation quite frequent in the real world. The regression-based methods can be used to develop a formal framework for quasi-experimental reasoning and to address major public policy questions related to such diverse issues as education, public health, social policies.