Economics 391: Economics and Business Statistics, spring 2014
Instructor: Prof. Jeremy A. Sandford
Office hour: TH 12:30-1:30pm, 335L B&E, or by appointment
Lecture:
3:30-4:45pm MW, BE 301
Midterm exam dates:
Monday February 24, and Wednesday, April 2, in class
Final
exam
date: Monday, May 5, 3:30pm-5:30pm
Required texts: Keller, Statistics, South-Western College Pub
Homework 1, answers
Homework 2, answers
Homework 3, answers
Homework 4, answers
datasets:Xr16-11,
Xr16-15,
Xr16-107,
GSS2008.xls
Homework 5, answers,
datasets: Xr18-17,
GSS2008.xls (nb. For problem 4, in the GSS data sex=1 means male, sex=2 means female)
Homework 6 (ungraded), answers
Schedule
Wednesday, January 15: Basic probability exercises
reading: Keller, chapter 6
reading: The probability of injustice, The Economist,
1/22/2004
optional: An interview with Emily Oster
Monday, January 20: no class (MLK Day)
Wednesday, January 22: Conditional probability, random
variables, mean and variance
reading: Keller, chapters 6-7
Monday, January 27: Binomial and Poisson random variables,
example problems
reading: Keller, chapter 7
Wednesday, January 29: no class
Monday, February 3: no class
Wednesday, February 5: no class
Monday, February 10: Continuous probability distributions: uniform, exponential, and normal
reading: Keller, chapter 8
Wednesday, February 12: Properties of the normal distribution, standard normal distribution
reading: Keller, chapter 8
Monday, February 17: Sampling distributions, interval
estimates
reading: Keller, chapter 9
Wednesda, February 19: sampling distributions, interval
estimation, exam review
reading: Keller, chaopters 9-10
Monday, February 24: Midterm exam 1 (exam, with answers)
topics: basica probability, discrete and continuous probability distributions, sampling distributions
Fall 2013 midterm 1, answers
Spring 2013 midterm 1, answers
Wednesday, February 26: Estimation, confidence intervals
reading: Keller, chapter 10
Monday, March 3: no class
Wednesday, March 5: hypothesis testing: terminology, rejection regions, type I errors
reading: Keller, chapter 11
Monday, March 10: hypothesis testing: p-values and probability of type II error
reading: Keller, chapter 11
Wednesday, March 12: linear regression analysis: terminology, interpreting regression coefficients
reading: Keller, chapter 16
Monday, March 17: no class (spring break)
Wednesday, March 19: no class (spring break)
Monday, March 24: regression: desirable properties of error terms, R^2, using Excel to produce regression results
reading: Keller, chapter 16
Wednesday, March 26: more practice with producing and interpreting results. F statistics, adjusted R^2, predicting values of y for given values of x
reading: Keller, chapter 16
Monday, March 31: regression, exam review
Wednesday, April 2: Midterm 2 (topics: interval estimation, hypothesis testing, regression)
Fall 2013 Midterm 2, answers
Spring 2013 Midterm 2, answers
Fall 2012 Midterm 2, answers
Monday, April 7: Intro to multiple regression
reading: Keller, chapter 17
Wednesday, April 9: Multiple regression
reading: Keller, chapter 17
Monday, April 14: The effect of police on 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
Wednesday, April 16: Dummy variables, polynomial models, model building
reading: Keller, chapter 19
Monday, April 21: Mandatory office hour meetings to discuss group regression projects schedule
Wednesday, April 23: The effect of prison conditions and the death penalty on crime
reading: Katz, Lawrence, Steven Levitt, and Ellen Shustorovich (2003), "Prison conditions, capital punishment, and deterrence," American Law and Economics Review, 5(2), 318-343
Monday, April 28: Lying with statistics: Simpson's paradox and examples
reading: (Dis)aggregation and Simpson's paradox
Momentous spring at the 2156 Olympics?
Examples of dubious statistical claims
Wednesday, April 30: Lying with statistics: group exercises
Futher examples (with explanations)
Monday, May 5, 3:30pm: final exam (cumulative)
Fall 2013 final exam
Spring 2013 final exam