Housing in St Andrews

• Candidate eligibility

  The project is suited for Economics students (single and joint Honours) but may also be of interest to students of Statistics, Computer Science, Mathematics, Geography, Management and Physics. Candidates should have an interest in Economics, the housing market and quantitative analysis.

  Familiarity with the following will be beneficial:

  • Coding: Some participants will be involved in building simulations, calibrating models, or web scraping, which all require computer code (Python). Prior experience is useful but not required.
  • Economic modelling: The project consists of building a quantitative economic model. Prior familiarity with basic economics and finance concepts is useful but not required.
  • Local knowledge: Both for modelling and for communicating results, knowledge of housing markets, the local housing market and local politics will be useful.

• Methods and technologies

  Students working on this project will use the following methods and technologies: 

  • Data gathering: web scraping, surveys, interviews. 
  • Data processing: basic database management. 
  • Statistical analysis: summarising and visualising the data, identifying patterns. 
  • Modelling: economic and financial modelling, implementation in Python. 
  • Reporting: visualisations, effective communication of concepts and results. 

• Assessment

  This project will be assessed through the following coursework:

  • Collective outputs (for e.g. progress reports, presentations): 50%
  • Team leadership administration: 10%
  • Individual logs: 10%
  • Final individual report: 30%