Andres Aradillas-LopezDepartment of EconomicsFall, 2009.ECON 310: Statistics: Measurement in Economics.Lecture: Monday and Wednesday, 2:30PM−3:45PM, Social Science Building 6104.Course Description: This course is an introduction to the analysis of economic da ta. We will study thetechniques of descriptive statistics and statistical inference (hypothesis testing and estimation) as directedtoward application in economic res earch.Professor: Andres Aradilla s-Lopez ([email protected])website: http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/∼aaradillOffice Hours: Thursday 1:15-2:45pm. Office: Social Science Building 6458.Teaching Assistants: Chu-An Liu ([email protected])Seojeong Lee ([email protected])TA Office Hours: To be announced shortly.Prerequisites: One introductory economics co urse and Math 2 11 or 221.Textbook: “Introduction to the Practice of Statistics”, by David Moore, George McCabe and Bruce Craig,sixth edition (Freeman). Please note that the tex tbook problems assigned for homework will refer to thesixth edition, not previous ones .Grading:∙ Homework (20%)∙ One midterm exam (35%)∙ Cumulative final exam (45%)Homework: There will be 10 problem sets. Each one will be due before lecture on the specified dates.Late assignments will not be accepted. However, the lowest problem set grade will be dropped andwill not count towards your final grade. The course has a strong empirical emphasis and consequently1a number of problem sets will involve computational data analysis. All such problems can be solvedusing Excel, or a number of other statistical packages, and you are free to use the program of yourpreference. Excel is installed in all 16 general-access computer labs. For precise information, goto http://www.doit.wisc.edu/computerlabs/ . Software information for each lab can be found athttp://www.doit.wisc.edu/computerlabs/software.asp . Students are encouraged to work with othersin the clas s on homework, but each student must write up his/her own solutions.Midterm Exam: There will be one in-class midterm exam on October 28. There will be no make-up dates.Final Exam: The final exam will be cumulative. It is scheduled for December 23, from 10:05AM-12:05PM.Room TBA.Course Outline:The following is the tentative outline of topics for the course with the cor responding tex tbook chapters. Wewill supplement a number of topics with additional class no tes to be be posted at:http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/∼aaradill/econ310f09.htmlWeeks 1 and 2 (Sept. 2, 9)∙ Graphic de scription of data (Chapter 1.1)∙ Numerical description of data (Chapter 1.2)Week 3 (Sept. 14, 16)∙ The Normal distribution (Chapter 1.3)∙ Standardization of the Normal distribution I (Chapter 1.3)Week 4 (Sept. 21, 23)∙ Standardization of the Normal distribution II (Chapter 1.3)∙ Scatterplots and correlation (Cha pters 2.1, 2.2)Week 5 (Sept. 28, 30)∙ Least-squa res regression (Chapter 2.3)Week 6 (Oct. 5, 7)∙ Correlation and causation (Chapters 2.4, 2.6)∙ Data collection and sample designs (Chapters 3.1, 3.2)2Week 7 (Oct. 12, 14)∙ Sampling distributions (Cha pter 3.3)∙ Randomness and probability models I (Chapters 4.1, 4.2 )Week 8 (Oct. 19, 21)∙ Randomness and probability models II (Chapters 4.1, 4.2)∙ Random variables, expectation and variance I (Chapters 4 .3, 4.4)Week 9 (Oct. 26, 28)∙ Random variables, expectation and variance II (Chapters 4.3, 4.4)∙ Midterm Exam (Oct. 2 8)Week 10 (Nov. 2, 4)∙ Law of Large Numbers (Chapter 4.4)∙ Sampling distributions for counts and proportions (Chapter 5.1)Week 11 (Nov. 9, 11)∙ Sampling distributions for sample means (Chapters 5.1, 5.2)∙ Central Limit Theorem (Chapter 5.2)Week 12 (Nov. 16, 18)∙ Confidence intervals (Chapter 6.1)∙ Hypothesis Tests I (Chapter 6.2)Week 13 (Nov. 23, 25)∙ Hypothesis Tests II (Chapter 6.2)∙ Inference for the mean (Chapter 7.1)Week 14 (Nov. 30, Dec. 2)Comparing the means of two populatio ns (Chapter 7.2)Inference for proportions (Chapters 8.1, 8.2 )Week 15 (Dec. 7, 9)∙ Inference in a simple linear re gression I (Chapter 10.1)Week 16 (Dec. 14 )∙ Inference in a simple linear re gression I (Chapter
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