Background and OLS
(posted: 31 Aug 2025)
This message outlines the lesson plans for our sessions
on Tue 02 Sep and Thu 04 Sep as well as for our sessions
on Tue 09 Sep and Thu 11 Sep.
After finishing our introductory discussions of the
Octopus Test and the
effect of the minimum wage,
we will review some background
on statistics and probability. And then we will discuss
ordinary least squares.
To prepare, please read Studenmund, chaps. 1, 2 and 3.
And please begin studying the
problem set.
We'll discuss problem #4 first, then return to #1.
To assist you, I have provided my
answers to #1.
Finally, for a practical example, we'll examine the effect that
a change in law has on labor market outcomes.
For that discussion, please read my
Analysis of the "Biagi Law".
To explain my choice, I wrote a page about
Teaching with the "Biagi Law" Data.
Welcome to Econometrics
(updated: 21 Aug 2025)
Welcome to
Econometrics.
This website helps me organize the course.
I hope you find it helpful.
I have posted a copy of the
syllabus.
Please review it and the materials listed on the
metrics page.
And in case you ever need them,
I keep old messages on the
message board page.
I hope this way of organizing the course helps.
textbooks
The textbooks that we will use are A.H. Studenmund's
Using Econometrics: A Practical Guide
and Peter Kennedy's
A Guide to Econometrics.
To get the best deal on the Studenmund textbook, compare prices at
Amazon and
Alibris. And go ahead and buy a used copy.
Then use your savings to buy a used copy of Kennedy's Guide.
To get the best deal, compare prices at
Amazon and
Alibris.
data and software
To learn econometrics, you must do econometrics, so this course provides
a few datasets
and some null hypotheses to help you learn how to conduct an analysis of the data.
To conduct an econometric analysis, we'll use
Gretl.
And when we study econometric theory, we'll use
wxMaxima.
Please install both.
The security features of macOS quarantine
wxMaxima,
preventing its installation. To lift the quarantine:
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine $HOME/Downloads/Maxima-5.43.0-VTK-macOS.dmg
For more details, see the
wxMaxima installation instructions
by Univ. of New Haven.
let's get started
I'd like to begin the semester with a pair of introductory discussions
that will help you appreciate the theory that we'll discuss this semester.
In the first discussion, I'd like to compare
Statistics and Machine Learning.
The specific topic will be the "octopus test" that
Bender and Koller developed in their 2020 paper,
"Climbing towards NLU."
To help you understand it, I have prepared some
notes on
Bender and Koller's paper.
And for fun, be sure to read Appendix A of the paper.
It's hilarious.
In the second discussion, I'd like to focus on a policy issue
that we'll discuss later in the semester.
The specific topic will be how the minimum wage affects employment.
For that discussion, please study my
monopsonist and minimum wage
problem and please read my analysis of
minimum wage, employment and annual pay.
I hope you'll enjoy the discussions.
I'm looking forward to working with you this semester.
Sincerely,
- Eryk Wdowiak
