Economics 143 - Course Outline


Updated frequently during term. Check often.
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January 12, January 19, January 26, February 2, February 9, February 16, February 23, March 2, March 9, March 16, March 23

An approximate course outline is given below. We will do our best to keep up the pace and to cover the full extent of the material indicated below. Gujarati is the textbook; Shazam is the software manual. SHAZAM readings should be skimmed briefly so that you know the content of each section. Not all of the SHAZAM manual need be memorized; portions of the material will not be relevant until you have taken additional courses in econometrics. You will need to know how SHAZAM has been implemented at UCLA's Social Science Computing.

 
Week of January 12 - January 16
Date Lecture Topic
Tues. 1/13 Lecture 1
  • Introduction
  • Administrative Stuff
  • Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 1
  • Chapters 1, 2
  • 3 (FILE through FORMAT)
  • 6 (esp. GENR, GEN1, IF, SKIPIF, TIME(0))
  • Review how sample means tend toward population mean as sample size increases (JAVA applet, requires JAVA- capable browser)
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
  • Syllabus
  • Problem Set #1 (Statistics Review)
  • Research Proposal Assignment
  • . Quiz 1
    Date Lecture Topic
    Thurs. 1/15 Lecture 2 Review of Basic Statistics
  • Univariate statistics
  • Bivariate statistics
  • Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 2
  • Chapter 4 (STAT, PCOR, PCOV, MEAN=, STDEV=, SUMS=)
  • Chapter 5 (PLOT, HISTO (GROUPS=), HOLD, LINEONLY, GNU, EGA plus GNUPLOT (p. 57-60))
  • SSC's GNUPLOT procedure in SHAZAM MENU "HELP"
  • Chapter 35 (NOCOLOR, NODOECHO, NOWARN, NOWARNSKIP)
  • Chapter 36 (* [comment lines], & [continuation lines], DIM, PAUSE, TITLE)
  • Chapter 37 (DO, ENDO)
  • Chapter 38 (SHAZAM procedures; skim to p. 414)
  • Review pairwise correlation (JAVA Applet; requires JAVA-capable browser)
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    Problem Set #2 (Hypothesis Testing, SHAZAM practice)
    alaska0.sha
    alaska.dat
    . Quiz 2
    Lab # Lab Topic(s) Relevant Files
    LAB #1 Orientation to SSC lab and SHAZAM
  • cons.dat
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    Week of January 19 - January 23
    Date Lecture Topic
    Tues. 1/20 Lecture 3 Some Important Distributions for Econometrics
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 3 Chapter 33 (DISTRIB, INVERSE, TYPE, DF=, CDF=, CRITICAL=) t-distribution, F-distribution, for different values of distribution parameters (require JAVA-capable browser)
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    . Problem Set #1 Quiz 3
    Date Lecture 4 Topic
    Thurs. 1/22 Lecture 4 Univariate Estimation and Hypothesis Testing
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 4 . Review confidence intervals (JAVA Applet; requires JAVA-capable browser)
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    . Problem Set #2 Quiz 4
    Lab # Lab Topic(s) Relevant Files
    Lab #2 Use of SHAZAM to visualize shapes of distributions plotdist.sha
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    Week of January 26 - January 30
    Date Lecture Topic
    Tues. 1/27 Lecture 5 Review of Simple Regression (the two-variable model)
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 5
  • Chapter 2 (A Child's Guide, esp. pp. 11-14)
  • Chapter 7 (to p. 89) (OLS, COEF=, PREDICT=, RESID=)
  • Review simple regression behavior (JAVA Applet; requires JAVA-capable browser)
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    . . Quiz 5
    Date Lecture Topic
    Thurs. 1/29 Lecture 6 Simple Regression, Continued
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 6.1-6.5 Chapter 8 (TEST, CONFID, GNU or EGA, TEST...END) Review effects of outliers in simple regression (JAVA Applet; requires JAVA-capable browser)
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    Problem Set #3 (Simple Regression)
    (files: np78.dat, doodad.dat)
    Problem Set #2 Quiz 6
    Lab # Lab Topic(s) Relevant Files
    Lab #3 Use of SHAZAM to build a distribution of sample regression functions plotsrf.sha,
    table5_1.dat
    (that's table5_1.dat).
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    Week of February 2 - February 6
    Date Lecture Topic
    Tues. 2/3 Lecture 7 Goodness-of-fit: Prediction
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 6.6-6.11 Chapter 7 (8) .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    . . Quiz 7
    Date Lecture Topic
    Thurs. 2/5 Lecture 8 Multiple Regression
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 7.1-7.4 Chapter 7 ($temp variables, pp. 89-90), Chapter 8 (TEST), Chapter 16 (FC, LIST, BEG=, END=, COEF=, p. 200) .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    Problem Set #4
    (files: study.sha, colds.sha
    Problem Set #3 Quiz 8
    Lab # Lab Topic(s) Relevant Files
    Lab #4 Omitted variables bias examples .
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    Week of February 9 - February 13
    Date Lecture Topic
    Tues. 2/10 Lecture 9 Multiple Regression, continued; practice problems, class survey
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 7.5-7.6 Chapter 7 .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    . . Quiz 9
    Date Lecture Topic
    Thurs. 2/12 Lecture 10 Multiple Regression: Hypothesis Testing
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 7.7-7.13 Chapter 8 (TEST) .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    Problem Set #5
    NOT TO BE HANDED IN
    Recent midterm problems.
    Problem Set #4 Quiz 10
    Lab # Lab Topic(s) Relevant Files
    Lab #5 Old Midterm questions and keys n:mailroom.sha n:coffee.sha n:mailroom.dat n:coffee.dat
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    Week of February 16 - February 20
    Date Lecture Topic
    Tues. 2/17 Lecture 11 F-tests; Functional Forms
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 8 Chapter 7 (LOGLIN, LOGLOG, LINLOG, RESTRICT), Chapter 12 (skim, BOX) .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    . . Quiz 11
    Date Lecture Topic
    Thurs. 2/19 ** MIDTERM ** .
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    . Chapter 6 (SEAS(x), DUM(x)) .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    Problem Set #5
    (functional forms; dummy variables)
    (files: prodtn.dat, credit.dat )
    . .
    Lab # Lab Topic(s) Relevant Files
    Lab #6 Dummy Variables; Multiple regression interpretation (i.e. LA apartment rentals again) mgr.sha, mgr.dat, larent.sha, larent.dat
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    Week of February 23 - February 27
    Date Lecture Topic
    Tues. 2/24 Lecture 12 Dummy Variables; Classroom Survey
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 9 . .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    . . Quiz 12
    Date Lecture Topic
    Thurs. 2/26 Lecture 13 Multicollinearity
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 10 Chapter 7 (AUXRSQR) .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    Problem Set #6
    (Multicollinearity; Classroom Survey)
    (files: sur97.sha, sur97.dat
    Problem Set #5 Quiz 13
    Lab # Lab Topic(s) Relevant Files
    Lab #7 Downloading data series from CITIBASE; plotting fitted isoquants from Problem Set #5 .
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    Week of March 2 - March 6
    Date Lecture Topic
    Tues. 3/3 Lecture 14 Heteroscedasticity
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 11.1-11.3 Chapter 7 (HETCOV, p. 83, Weighted Regression, pp. 95-96) .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    . . Quiz 14
    Date Lecture Topic
    Thurs. 3/5 Lecture 15 Heteroscedasticity, continued
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 11.4-11.6 Chapter 18 (HET) .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    Problem Set #7
    (Heteroscedasticity)
    Problem Set #6 Quiz 15
    Lab # Lab Topic(s) Relevant Files
    Lab #8 Dummy variable interpretation .
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    Week of March 9 - March 13
    Date Lecture Topic
    Tues. 3/10 Lecture 16 Autocorrelated Errors (Serial Correlation)
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 12.1-12.3 Chapter 7 (RSTAT, EXACTDW) .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    . ** Proposal ** Quiz 16
    Date Lecture Topic
    Thurs. 3/12 Lecture 17 Autocorrelated Errors, continued
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 12.4-12.6 Chapter 11 (AUTO) .
    Pick Up Turn in Online Quiz
    Problem Set #8 (Autocorrelated Errors)
    Proposal to be Reviewed
    Problem Set #7 Quiz 17
    Lab # Lab Topic(s) Relevant Files
    Lab #9 Analysis of class surveys Data will eventually be available in:
    surv97_1.sha, surv97_1.dat
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    Week of March 16 - March 20
    Date Lecture Topic
    Tues. 3/17 Lecture 18 Model Selection; Endogenous Regressors
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 13.1-13.2 Chapter 14 (DIAGNOS) .
    Pick up Turn in Online Quiz
    . . Quiz 18
    Date Lecture Topic
    Thurs. 3/19 Lecture 19 Overflow, Other Topics
    Gujarati Readings Shazam Readings Other
    Chapter 13.3-13.4 . .
    Access on Web Turn in Online Quiz
    Old Finals Problem Set #8
    Review of Proposal
    Quiz 19
    Lab # Lab Topic(s) Relevant Files
    Lab #10 Counterfactual simulations: Alaska salmon prices .
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    Exam Week (March 23 - March 27)
    Date Event Location(s)
    Wed. 3/25 **  FINAL EXAM ** TBA
    Pick up Turn in Other
    Remaining homeworks Grade card .
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    COURSE OUTLINE LECTURE OUTLINES PROBLEM SETS PROBLEM SOLUTIONS COMPUTER LABS
    SHAZAM EXAMPLES DATA SETS ONLINE QUIZZES GRAPHICS HANDOUTS

    Updated: January 9, 1997
    Prepared by: Trudy Ann Cameron