Difference between revisions of "Main Page"
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This is the home of the ECLR. It is the purpose of this resource to facilitate the learning of '''MATLAB''' as an Econometric software. | This is the home of the ECLR. It is the purpose of this resource to facilitate the learning of '''MATLAB''' as an Econometric software. | ||
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Why do you need to learn MATLAB? | Why do you need to learn MATLAB? | ||
| − | + | It is a widely used programming environment for Economists and many academics write and publish code in MATLAB. If you just want to run a simple regression in MATLAB it will (initially) take you longer to get to the results than in other menu driven software packages such as EVIEWS. However, if you want to achieve nonstandard things (and working on a PhD or even a MSc you are bound to want to do non-standard things) the picture is very different. A menu driven software package may do some related things but often not exactly what you want. Even if the software package has a "button" to do what you want to do, it is often badly documented what exactly happens underneath the hood. But most importantly, many nonstandard things just cannot be done in menu driven software. This is were MATLAB (or other software packages like GAUSS or OX) comes to the rescue. At the core it has nothing to do with econometrics. It is a matrix algebra maths programme in which you can do with data (stored in matrices) whatever you want. When we say whatever, then this is to be understood almost literally. And that is the point. | |
There are a number of great advantages once you are familiar with MATLAB: | There are a number of great advantages once you are familiar with MATLAB: | ||
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If you did any programming in any other programming language, such as Visual Basic, C, C++, GAUSS, etc. you will recognise a lot of common patterns. Learning how to use MATLAB to do econometrics is 100% a trial and error process and hence this wiki will provide guidance but you will have to do yourself. | If you did any programming in any other programming language, such as Visual Basic, C, C++, GAUSS, etc. you will recognise a lot of common patterns. Learning how to use MATLAB to do econometrics is 100% a trial and error process and hence this wiki will provide guidance but you will have to do yourself. | ||
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A similar page exists for the following softwares: | A similar page exists for the following softwares: | ||
Revision as of 15:06, 12 September 2012
Contents
Econometric Computing Learning Resource (ECLR)
This is the home of the ECLR. It is the purpose of this resource to facilitate the learning of MATLAB as an Econometric software.
Why do you need to learn MATLAB? It is a widely used programming environment for Economists and many academics write and publish code in MATLAB. If you just want to run a simple regression in MATLAB it will (initially) take you longer to get to the results than in other menu driven software packages such as EVIEWS. However, if you want to achieve nonstandard things (and working on a PhD or even a MSc you are bound to want to do non-standard things) the picture is very different. A menu driven software package may do some related things but often not exactly what you want. Even if the software package has a "button" to do what you want to do, it is often badly documented what exactly happens underneath the hood. But most importantly, many nonstandard things just cannot be done in menu driven software. This is were MATLAB (or other software packages like GAUSS or OX) comes to the rescue. At the core it has nothing to do with econometrics. It is a matrix algebra maths programme in which you can do with data (stored in matrices) whatever you want. When we say whatever, then this is to be understood almost literally. And that is the point. There are a number of great advantages once you are familiar with MATLAB:
- You can easily repeat the same analysis with another dataset.
- For some analysis there are some very repetitive things you got to do. In some cases, writing a program will eliminate the need to do essentially the same thing many times. You instruct the software to do the repetitive work for you.
- By writing a MATLAB program (or script) you essentially also create a record of what you do. This is extremely useful when it comes to understanding previous work and to identify mistakes. This is possibly the most important advantage of writing your own programs.
If you did any programming in any other programming language, such as Visual Basic, C, C++, GAUSS, etc. you will recognise a lot of common patterns. Learning how to use MATLAB to do econometrics is 100% a trial and error process and hence this wiki will provide guidance but you will have to do yourself.
A similar page exists for the following softwares:
The Basic Programming Techniques
In this section we will introduce a number of very basic (yet extremely powerful) programming techniques. Whatever language you programme in you will encounter these techniques, although the details will of course vary. We recommend that you ensure that you are familiar with these before you progress to #Special Econometric Topics .
| Matrices | Loading Data | Functions | Program Flow |
|---|---|---|---|
| TBC | LoadingData | Discussion FunctionExample.m OLSest.m Example Data |
TBC |
Special Econometric Topics
Other useful MATLAB resources
- Sheppard's MATLAB introduction
- Martin V., Hurn S. and Harris D. (2012) Econometric Modelling with Time Series: Specification, Estimation and Testing (Themes in Modern Econometrics) [1]
- Higham, D.J. and Higham, N.J. (2005) MATLAB Guide, Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics [2]
Help for using WikiMedia
Licensing
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Econometrics Computing Learning Resource by <a xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#" href="http://eclr.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/index.php/Main_Page" property="cc:attributionName" rel="cc:attributionURL">Ralf Becker and Arthur Sinko</a> is licensed under a <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/deed.en_GB">Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License</a>.
