Philip Ganderton's Teaching Web |
||
|
Course material available for Ec309: Exams-
|
Economics 309Introductory Econometrics Fall 2003, Prof. Philip Ganderton Welcome to Economics 309, the dreaded Econometrics course required of all Econ majors! But don't worry, it's not that bad. Just put your head back, open your mouth, here comes the drill... It's my goal to make this course something you'll look back on with fond memories. I hope you'll learn about econometrics and think about the analysis of economic data with a more critical attitude. My philosophy about econometrics is pretty simple to express--think of numbers and other data as information. It's the empirical economist's job to identify the information, extract it and interpret it. But therein lies the rub, of course. We've all heard the old saying about lies and statistics. Empirical analysis is selective, so we can all be accused of selectively processing the data to obtain the conclusion we seek. While there may be no such thing as absolute objectivity, it's certainly possible to be clear on what data you used, and how it was processed. After taking this course, I hope you will have a better idea of this process of data collection, organization, analysis and interpretation.
The Graduate Assistant for this course is Wenxia Ying. You can contact her with your questions at: |
Quote from The Economist, December 15, 2001, page 62: "... two types of mistake, which economists call type I and type II errors. Both are familiar to any courtroom. Type I errors are caused by excessive caution: for example, the court that lets a guilty defendant go free. Type II errors result from excessive zeal: for example, the court that convicts an innocent who is wrongly accused." Definitions: What is the null hypothesis implicitly used by The Economist to make their definitions correct? |