1Economics 203 Syllabus Economic Statistics II Sections AL1, AL2, BL1 Spring 2015 Instructor: Professor Joseph A. Petry Dr. Zaruhi Sahakyan Office: 116 David Kinley Hall 101 David Kinley Hall Phone: 333-4260 333-4977 e-mail: [email protected] [email protected] Office hours: M 3:00 – 4:00 M/W 11:00 - 12:00 Lecture hours: M/W 2:00 – 2:50 M/W 9:00 – 9:50, 10:00 – 10:50 Lecture Section: BL1 AL1, AL2 Lecture Location: 141 Wohlers Hall 141 Wohlers Hall Lab Time: Varies by TA section Lab Days: Thursday or Friday depending upon TA section Lab Location: 901 W. Oregon, Room 101 TA Office Hours: See Compass for schedule TA Contacts: Head TA (BL1) Saeed Sarhangian [email protected] Head TA (AL1,2) Kaz Hashimoto [email protected] Other TAs See Announcements Course Website: https://compass2g.illinois.edu Homework Platform: http://login.cengagebrain.com/course/UCQR-RAFT-7SXL Course Key: UCQR-RAFT-7SXL Required Texts / Materials: Aplia Homework system. (available online—See Homework platform link above) Petry, Economics 203 Course Packet. Spring 2015. Anderson, Sweeney, Williams, Modern Business Statistics with Microsoft Office Excel, 4e. South-Western/Cengage. An e-text version of this text comes automatically with the Aplia homework system. When you purchase Aplia, you will have an e-version of the ASW text. You may also purchase a hard copy from the site if you would like—optional.2Required Materials: Basic financial or statistical calculator. You should ALWAYS bring your calculator to class! We have found that the Texas Instruments BAII Plus is useful, and is often used in other classes. We will provide basic instructions in the use of this calculator in class (and only this calculator). To insure fairness for all students, calculators with functionality beyond the BAII Plus, will NOT be permitted for use on exams. Graphing calculators therefore will NOT be permitted during exams. Course Objective: Statistics helps us make better decisions by extracting information from data. That's it, nothing more! And yet, by the end of this course you will have spent at least two full semesters learning how to best accomplish this. A famous statistician once said: "without data, we are just another person with an opinion". Obtaining data, and analyzing it properly, can vastly enhance the influence you have in your professional life and community, as well as allow you to make better decisions in both your personal and professional lives. Our own real-world experience has taught us that statistics may be the single most useful tool one can learn as a student, irrespective of your major. As you will find, statistical analysis can be applied to nearly every field of human endeavor. We have put together a course that we hope will make learning this important material as successful and enjoyable as possible. In designing the specifics of the course, we have laid out four key objectives that we hope to accomplish before the semester ends. These four objectives have guided all our decisions in terms of course structure, content and administration. At the end of this course, students should: 1. Understand the relevance of statistics in their future course-work and professions 2. Be trained to identify the proper statistical technique to apply to a problem 3. Be adept at finding the answers to statistical queries using excel 4. Be able to properly interpret the results of their analysis. Course Content: Students must have completed a course on probability and statistical analysis before becoming eligible to take Economics 203. The best course to meet this requirement is Economics 202 at the University of Illinois. Inferential Statistical Analysis is the common thread tying the topics of Economics 203 together. In this course we briefly review single population cases of hypothesis testing and confidence interval formation before extending this analysis to two population cases. We emphasize mean, variance and proportion as the parameters of interest. We also cover single-factor Analysis of Variance. The most significant portion of the course is regression analysis. We cover simple and multiple regression, consider assumption violations and how to handle them as well as qualitative variables, transformations, curvilinear relationships and model building. The course ends with time series analysis. Course Grade: Mid-term Exam I 20% Project I 2.5% Mid-term Exam II 20% Project II 2.5% Final Exam 25% Lab Quiz #1 5.0% Homework 20% Lab Quiz #2 5.0%3Grading Scale: The scale used to assign letter grades in the course will be established by the instructor at the end of the semester. A +/- scale will be used. The cut-offs for +/- will also be established by the instructor at the end of the semester. Once the scale is assigned by the instructor at the end of the course, no exceptions will be made. We do not round grades up. Exams: There will be three exams (two midterms and a final) given during the semester. Each mid-term will only cover the material since the last exam. The final exam will be comprehensive. Basic calculators will be permitted, and you will be provided with a formula sheet identical to the one at the back of your course-packet for use during the exams. Students are required to have their University of Illinois Student ID with them to take their exam. Students who do not have their ID with them for the exam may not be allowed to take the exam. This policy is necessary for us to insure the integrity of the exams. We only offer conflict exams if a student qualifies for such an accommodation under university guidelines. The university policy is stated in the Student Code. If a student is unable to attend the conflict exam, then the weight of the missed exam will be added to the weight of the final exam at the end of the semester. If you believe you are eligible for a conflict exam, you must notify your TA in writing during the first week of class. If you do not notify your TA in a timely fashion, you may not be eligible for the conflict. Homework: Statistics can only be learned one way--doing a