ECON 309
Use & Interpretation of Economic Data
Fall 2010, Sat 11:00-1:45, JH 1131
Ticket number 12537
Office Hours: Sat 1:45-2:45, or by appt.
Professor Glen Whitman
Office: JH 4236
glen.whitman@gmail.com
www.csun.edu/~dgw61315/
dgwecon.html
Syllabus
Course Objectives:
To understand and interpret statistics in the economics literature and mainstream media.
To identify misuses and abuses of statistics, charts, and figures. To perform basic
econometric analysis using real and simulated data.
Grading:
Your final grade in this class will be determined by the following rubric.
Requirement
Participation (incl. completion assignments)
Midterm Exam
Regression Assignment
Presentation
Final Exam
Weight
10%
35%
10%
10%
35%
Date
throughout
10/16
11/20
11/13 or 11/20
12/11, 10:15-12:15
The final exam will be cumulative. Your specific presentation date and time will be
determined by random draw (with the opportunity for mutually beneficial trades).
Textbooks, Materials, and Website:
Robert A. Donnelly, Jr., The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Statistics, Alpha, 2004.
Darrell Huff, How to Lie With Statistics, W.W. Norton & Co., 1954.
Other reading and listening materials will be assigned periodically. Some will be handed
out in class; others will be posted on the website. Check the website regularly for links.
You will need to use Microsoft Excel 2007 for many of your assignments. Using a
different statistical program will make your life difficult. Get Excel.
On my website, listed at the top of this page, you will find various materials relevant to
this class, including (1) completion assignments, (2) the academic honesty policy, (3) the
drop policy, and (4) the make-up exam policy. Please familiarize yourself with these,
especially the academic honesty policy.
Assignment Descriptions:
Participation. Your participation grade is based on: (1) Taking part in class with useful
questions and insightful comments. (2) Bringing examples of statistics and graphs from
media sources for class discussion. (3) Attending class on both presentation days. (4)
Doing completion assignments. These will be posted periodically on the website. Bring
the results to class. (The completion assignments are not the same as the practice
problems listed in the schedule below. You do not need to turn in the practice problems.)
Regression Assignment. Approximately 10 weeks into the semester, I will post this
assignment on the website. This assignment will involve downloading a data set,
performing statistical analysis on it, and interpreting the results. You will turn in your
assignment by email, in the form of an Excel file.
Presentation. You will give a 5-minute speech to the class. The topic will be a graph,
table, or other visual representation of data from a print news source (such as the New
York Times, Time Magazine, or Business Week). You will discuss the meaning of the
information presented, the effectiveness of its presentation, and any ways in which it
could be misleading or mistaken. Your should have a single PowerPoint slide of your
target graph/table to refer to during your presentation.
For the presentation, you must bring me your source article for approval at least one
week prior to your presentation. Since I will not allow more than one student to use the
same source article, the earlier you get my approval the better.
Course and Reading Schedule:
All listed readings are from Huff and Donnelly. Huff is a very fast read, so I recommend
reading it straight through within the first two weeks. But if you want to space it out, use
the reading schedule below. The practice problems are from Donnelly (“Your Turn”
problems). You will not be graded on these; answers are in the back of the book.
Topic
The Basics
Huff
Donnelly
Ch. 1, 2, 4, 5
Use & Abuse of Statistics
Use & Abuse of Graphs
Sampling & Causation
Probability Theory
Confidence Intervals
Hypothesis Testing
Simple Regression
Multiple Regression
Regression Difficulties
Economic Myths & Reality
Ch. 2, 7, 9, 10
Ch. 5, 6
Ch. 3
Ch. 1, 8
Ch. 12
Ch. 3, 4
Ch. 6, 7, 11
Ch. 13, 14
Ch. 15, 16
Ch. 20
Practice
1.1-6; 2.1-14; 4.1-4,
4.6-7; 5.1-3, 5.6
3.1-4
12.1-3
6.2-4; 7.1-12; 11.1-3
13.1-2; 14.1-7
15.1-5; 16.1-3, 16.6
20.2a-c