Ioana Marinescu

Ioana Marinescu
  • Associate Professor of Social Policy & Practice

Contact Information

Teaching

Past Courses

  • MSSP6300 - Quantitative Reasoning

    This course provides an introduction to statistical inference. We will learn the fundamental tools of data science and apply them to a wide range of social science and policy-oriented questions. The objective of the course is to develop two broad skill sets: (1) an understanding of the conceptual foundations for why we might manage or analyze data in one way versus another, and (2) learning the computing and programming tools (using R) to manage, visualize, and analyze data. The topics covered in the course include descriptive statistics, measure of association for categorical and continuous variables, introduction to t-tests, ANOVA and linear regression, research design (e.g., sampling, measurement, and causal inference), and the language of data analysis. Students will learn how to apply statistical tools to data sources, to design research studies, to test hypotheses, and to interpret the results of quantitative studies. The lecture focuses on the conceptual foundations of statistical inference; R programming instruction is covered in the weekly lab sections.

  • MSSP6680 - Econ For Social Policy

    Economics allows us to determine the costs and benefits of social policies like cash benefits, unemployment insurance, health insurance, pensions, education, etc. Policies typically affect the behavior of agents like individuals, families and firms, and we have to take these reactions into account when analyzing policy. Economics allows us to predict how policy is likely to affect behavior by understanding how the policy changes individuals' decisions, and what collective outcomes these myriad individual decisions bring about. For example, a universal basic income allows individuals to sustain themselves and their families when they are not working. At the same time, such guaranteed income has the potential to discourage people from looking for a job. If enough people are discouraged from looking for a job, employment in the economy will decrease, leading to lower production and lower tax revenues for the government. Policymakers have to take these phenomena into account in order to design a good income support system.

  • MSSP7806 - AI and Public Policy

    Governments around the world are already using artificial intelligence: e.g. chatbots that answer residents' questions, tools that support benefit or grant applications, and systems that analyze public comments and administrative data. This course examines how AI is changing the policy-making cycle: the way governments understand problems, design policies, make decisions, implement and evaluate policies. The course is hands-on: using AI coding agents, students build policy-relevant tools and workflows, for example to synthesize research evidence, extract and analyze data from government documents, generate and stress-test policy options, and prototype digital public services. A central emphasis is using AI critically. By combining AI-assisted work with assignments completed without AI, students learn how to use AI in ways that deepen rather than replace their own understanding, and to produce rigorous work that can make a difference in the policy world. The course also addresses the ethical, legal, and regulatory questions raised by AI in the public sector, including bias, accountability, and human oversight. Connecting classroom learning to policy practice, the course typically features guest lectures from policy professionals and assignments designed with input from government or international organizations, such as policy memos written for a public-sector partner.

  • MSSP7980 - Social Policy Topics

    Titles and topics vary.

  • SOCW9950 - Dissertation

    All students on dissertation are registered for year-long dissertation status courses. These courses will receive a temporary mark of PR in the fall to indicate the course is in progress and a permanent mark of S (satisfactory progress) or U (unsatisfactory) at the end of the spring semester (or fall semester if that is the student's last enrolled term). The mark will be a reflection of the evaluation by the Graduate Group of the student's progress based, in part, on the student's Annual Progress Report.

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Social Security Is Running Out of Time

Kent Smetters, faculty director of the Penn Wharton Budget Model, examines potential benefit cuts, tax increases, and a higher retirement age as policymakers confront Social Security's looming shortfall.…Read More

Knowledge @ Wharton - 2026/10/23
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