Econ 312: Introduction to Econome trics
Summer 2024
Course Objective
This course deals with the applications of statistical models and theories for modeling and analyzing economic and social problems. The purpose of the course is to train students in the quantitative modeling approaches to understanding and analyzing economic and social phenomena. Economic events and outcomes often show considerable level of uncertainties. As a result, a government planner or a business executive often must take recourse to conjectures in making policy decisions. This course will give students exposure to how decisions based on conjectures are formally tested and substantiated, using statistical body of knowledge. Economic uncertainties often have a complex blend of certain (deterministic) and random (probabilistic) components. Applications of economic and statistical tools help us separate out the deterministic features of an economic and social phenomenon from the probabilistic features. This is done by using existing quantitative information (data) on an economic or social event.
The primary objec 代 写Econ 312: Introduction to Econometrics tive of this course is to learn how to apply statistical and econometric tools to address numerous economic and social issues within the abovementioned framework. For instance, we may be interested to know the expected rate of return on a common stockor to formally verify if the risk associated with an investment is within acceptable level. We may also want to see how a price of a product affects the volume of sales of a company; we may be interested to investigate what contributes the most in determining house price. We may want to know how elastic the demand for gasoline is, or we may want to forecast the likely sales of smart phones ten years from now. Addressing these issues require availability of quantitative economic information commonly called data. A portion of this course will help students learn how to gather and use relevant economic data and make them suitable for statistical and econometric applications using computer and statistical software, primarily STATA and EXCEL.
Prerequisites
• Economics 301 (Intermediate Microeconomics)
• Economics 311 (Introductory Statistics)
• Math 226 (calculus)
• Working knowledge of Microsoft EXCEL
Course Organization
This course will be offered asynchronously, meaning there will be no scheduled classes. Everything about this course, including course outline, Office Hours ZOOM link, link to all recorded video lectures, study materials, exams, online submission of tests is available on the Canvas website (canvas.sfsu.edu). All registered students have access to the SFSU Canvas site with login and password credentials. Each video lecture recording will contain lecture on econometric theory as well as lab-based application of data analytic techniques. Students MUST watch each video multiple times with pen and paper at hand for practice.
For ****data ****analytic ****techniques, ****EXCEL, ****and ****a ****statistical ****softw are, ****called ****STATA, ****will ****be ****the ****primary ****statistical ****packages ****to ****be us ed. There will be three homework assignments. Homework 1 and 2 will be due right before exams 1 and 2, respectively. Homework 3 will be due during week 5 of class. Instead of a final exam, every student will carry out an INDEPENDENT MODELING PROJECT, which will be due for evaluation on the last day of class.
Grading ******Weights and ******Letter Grades
| Grading Weights | Letter grades | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Two Midterm (25% weight each) | 50% | 95-100% | A |
| 90-95% | A- | ||
| Modelling Project | 30% | 85-90% | B+ |
| 80-85% | B | ||
| Three homework assignments | 20% | 75-80% | C+ |
| 70-75% | C | ||
| 65-70% | D+ | ||
| 60-65% | D | ||
| <60% | F |
• Watching recorded video lectures is the ****most impor tant factor in the ****overall ****performance ****and ****course ****grade.
Required Text and Course ******Material
Required Text: Author: Christopher Dougherty, Introduction to Econ ometrics, ****Fifth Edition or later ****(preferred), Oxford Univ ersity Press
**Course Material: ********Handouts and lecture notes will be posted on CANVAS for this course on a weekly basis. Homework exercises, data sets for homework assignments and for class discussion purposes will be put up on the CANVAS website on a weekly basis. Students are required to download the data set for their work from the CANVAS website or from the Textbook website at
Course ******Outline **, ********Assignments **, **Exams **, **and ******Modeling ******Project
| Week of | Lecture/Discussion Topic/Assignment/Reading List |
|---|---|
| 7/8 | Review: Random Variables, Sampling, Estimation, Inference Dougherty **Review ChapterHW Assignment 1 (due 7/14, Midnight, PST) Midterm ****1 (July 15 Review Chapter) |
| 7/15, 22, 29 | Simple Regression Analysis Dougherty Chapters 1 and 2 HW Assignment 2 (due ****7/25)Midterm 2 (July 29, Chapters 1 and 2) |
| 7/29, 8/5 | Multiple Linear Regression Analysis Dougherty Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6Modeling Project work begins (due August 9)Discussion on Modeling Project and Modeling Project preparation |
| 8/7 | Multiple Linear Regression Analysis and Heteroscedasticity Dougherty **Chapters 6, 7HW Assignment 3 (due August 8) Modeling Project (due August 9) |
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