Difference between revisions of "Statistics"

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(The Basics)
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== Probability ==
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== Random Variables and Probability ==
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In Statistics we are dealing with uncertainty. The tool to handle uncertainty is to treat outcomes of variables as random. We then assign probabilities to the possible outcomes to these random variables. These are the tools to deal with these constructs.
  
 
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Revision as of 14:49, 16 August 2013

This page is currently being build and should be completed for the start of Academic Year 2013/14.

The purpose of these pages is to give prospective and current postgraduate students in Economics at The University of Manchester an opportunity to understand what Statistics knowledge they are expected to have and, of course, a source of revision information. The material presented here is largely based on material written by our colleagues Len Gill, Denise Osborn and Chris Orme at The University of Manchester.

This page is explicitly designed with MSc Economics (and/or Econometrics) and MA Economics students at The University of Manchester in mind. Below you will be able to identify which topic is expected knowledge for the MSc/MA.

The Basics

These are the basic tools you need when you want to do any statistics.

Topic MA Economics MSc Economics
Preliminaries and Notation Yes Yes
Data types Yes Yes
Graphical Representation Yes Yes
Descriptive Statistics Yes Yes
Correlation & Regression Exercises Correlation only Yes

Random Variables and Probability

In Statistics we are dealing with uncertainty. The tool to handle uncertainty is to treat outcomes of variables as random. We then assign probabilities to the possible outcomes to these random variables. These are the tools to deal with these constructs.

Topic MA Economics MSc Economics
Introduction to Probability Yes Yes
Conditional Probability Exercises Yes Yes
Discrete Random Variables Yes Yes
Continuous Random Variables Exercises No Yes
Normal Distribution Yes Yes
Moments and Expectations Exercises No Yes

Statistical Inference

Topic MA Economics MSc Economics
Joint Probability Distributions
Linear Combinations of RV
Populations, Samples & Sampling Distributions
Statistics & Sampling Distributions
Point Estimation
Confidence Intervals
Hypothesis Testing


Example Data Sets

Throughout these pages a few example datasets will be used.

Description Organisation Data File Source
Data used to calculate a quality of Life Index OECD (collecting data from various sources) BetterLifeIndex.xls [1]
Exchange Rate USD/UKP Board of Governors of the Federal reserve System USDUKP.xlsx [2]
UK Gross Domestic Product Office of national Statistics UK_GDP_INF.xlsx [3]
Passengers on the Titanic Titanic.xlsx [4]
CO2 and GDP Gapminder.com GDP_CO2.xlsx [5]