Statistics
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.
Contents
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
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] |
