Economics 391: Economics and Business Statistics, spring 2013


Instructor: Prof. Jeremy A. Sandford

Office hour: M 2:00-2:50pm, 335L B&E, or by appointment
Lecture: 9:00-9:50am MWF, BE 301

Exam dates: Monday February 4, Friday March 1, and Friday April 5, in class
Final exam date: Wednesday, May 1, 8am-10am

Required texts: Keller, Statistics, South-Western College Pub

Syllabus

Homework 1, answers
Homework 2, answers
Homework 3, answers
Homework 4, answers
Homework 5, answers
Homework 6, not collected (final exam prep), answers

Group project assignment


Schedule


Wednesday, January 9: Basic probability
reading: Keller, chapter 6
reading: The probability of injustice, The Economist, 1/22/2004

Friday, January 11: Conditional probability, random variables, mean and variance
reading: Keller, chapters 6-7

Monday, January 14: binomial random variables: setup
reading: Keller, chapter 7

Wednesday, January 16: binomial random variables: practice, and poisson random variables
reading: Keller, chapter 7

Friday, January 18: binomial and poisson random variables, continuous probability distributions
reading: Keller, chapters 7-8

Monday, January 21: no class (academic holiday)

Wednesday, January 23: Uniform and exponential random variables, continuous probability distributions
reading: Keller, chapter 8

Friday, January 25: Exponential and normal random variables
reading: keller, chapter 8

Monday, January 28: Normal distribution; standardizing normal probabilities
reading: Keller, chapter 8

Wednesday, January 30: Normal distribution; what percentage of 7-footers are in the NBA?
reading: Keller, chapter 8

Friday, February 1: snow cancellation

Monday, February 4: Exam 1 review
Last year's first midterm (with answers)

Wednesday, February 6: Exam 1, exam with answers, grade distribution
chapters 6-8

Friday, February 8: Sampling distributions
reading: Keller, chapter 9

Monday, February 11: Sampling distributions, practice problems
reading: Keller, chapter 9

Wednesday, February 13: Sampling distributions of proportions, estimation
reading: Keller, chapters 9-10

Friday, February 15: Estimation, confidence intervals
reading: Keller, chapter 10

Monday, February 18: Statistically testing hypotheses
reading: Keller, chapter 11

Wednesday, February 20: Hypothesis testing continued: type I and type II errors, one- and two-sided hypotheses tests
reading: Keller, chapter 11

Friday, February 22: Hypothesis testing continued: p-values
reading: Keller, chapter 11

Monday, February 25: Hypothesis testing continued: calculating the probability of type II errors
reading: Keller, chapter 11

Wednesday, February 27: exam review
Last semester's midterm 2 (ignore unfamiliar problems, i.e. on regression)

Friday, March 1: Exam #2 (with answers)
topics: confidence intervals and hypothesis tests (chapters 10 and 11)

Monday, March 4: Introduction to regression analysis
reading: Keller, chapter 16

Wednesday, March 6: Regression analysis
reading: Keller, chapter 16

Friday, March 8: No class (enjoy spring break)

Monday, March 11: no class (spring break)

Wednesday, March 13: no class (spring break)

Friday, March 15: no class (spring break)

Monday, March 18: regression: assessing computer-generated results
reading: Keller, chapter 16

Wednesday, March 20: regression: significant coefficients
reading: Keller, chapter 16

Friday, March 22: the t-distribution versus the normal distribution, example problems
reading: Keller, chapter 16

Monday, March 25: Multiple regression: introduction
reading: Keller, chapter 17

Wednesday, March 27: Multiple regression
reading: Keller, chapter 17

Friday, March 29: Multiple regression
reading: Keller, chapter 17

Monday, April 1: Multiple regression: example problems
reading: Keller, chapter 17

Wednesday, April 3: Exam review
Last year's midterm 2
Last year's final exam (study only regression questions)

Friday, April 5: Exam #3
topics: single- and multi-variable regression, Keller chapters 16-17.3

Monday, April 8: Dummy variables, interaction terms, and polynoimal terms
reading: Keller, chapter 18

Wednesday, April 10: Dummy variables, interaction terms, and polynoimal terms
reading: Keller, chapter 18

Friday, April 12: Mandatory office hours for group project (no class)
9am: Ellie, Lee, Victoria, Zach, and Andrew
9:10am: Shawn, Michael, Evan, Matthew, and Shannon
9:20am: Taylor, Nathan, Alec, Nelson, and Christina
9:30am: Carly, Megan, Audrey, Will, and Ana

Monday, April 15: Mandatory office hours for group project (no class)
9am: Juwan, Matthew, Zachary, Bryan, and Lucas
9:10am: Saphace, Lauren, Chris, Hiral, and Dane
9:20am: Max, Brian, Devin, Evan, and Bryan
9:30am: Max, Jennifer, Katie, William, and Lauren

Wednesday, April 17: Lying with statistics: Simpson's paradox
reading: (Dis)aggregation and Simpson's paradox

Friday, April 19: Lying with statistics: examples
Examples of dubious statistical claims
Momentous spring at the 2156 Olympics?, Tatem et al., Nature 431 (525), September 30, 2004,

Monday, April 22: Lying with statistics: group exercises
slides from class

Wednesday, April 24: Application: relationship between police and crime
reading: Klick, Jonathan and Alexander Tabarrok (2005), "Using terror alert levels to estimate the effect of police on crime," Journal of Law and Economics, 48(1), 267-279

Friday, April 26: no class

Wednesday, May 1, 8am: Final exam