Introduction to econometrics 3rd ed.

Abstract

Econometrics can be a fun course for both teacher and student. The real world of economics, business, and government is a complicated and messy place, full of competing ideas and questions that demand answers. Is it more effective to tackle drunk driving by passing tough laws or by increasing the tax on alcohol? Can you make money in the stock market by buying when prices are historically low, relative to earnings, or should you just sit tight, as the random walk theory of stock prices suggests? Can we improve elementary education by reducing class sizes, or should we simply have our children listen to Mozart for 10 minutes a day? Econometrics helps us sort out sound ideas from crazy ones and find quantitative answers to important quantitative questions. Econometrics opens a window on our complicated world that lets us see the relationships on which people, businesses, and governments base their decisions. Introduction to Econometrics is designed for a first course in undergraduate econometrics. It is our experience that to make econometrics relevant in an introductory course, interesting applications must motivate the theory and the theory must match the applications. This simple principle represents a significant departure from the older generation of econometrics books, in which theoretical models and assumptions do not match the applications. It is no wonder that some students question the relevance of econometrics after they spend much of their time learning assumptions that they subsequently realize are unrealistic so that they must then learn “solutions” to “problems” that arise when the applications do not match the assumptions. We believe that it is far better to motivate the need for tools with a concrete application and then to provide a few simple assumptions that match the application. Because the theory is immediately relevant to the applications, this approach can make econometrics come alive.