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Applied Econometrics for Business

Module description

The ability to perform and critically discuss applied empirical work is central to a business economists’ job in today’s workplace. The volume of economic and financial data is ever increasing, and so are the opportunities to use this data to undertake empirical economic and business research. The quantitative methods, and the software used to apply them, becoming more and more sophisticated, and this module aims to provide training in both the empirical methods and in the application of those methods using a modern statistics software package.

Additional Information:

Employability: In today’s electronic world, all businesses are collecting data and need employees who can critically analyse the vast amount of data to smartly drive business decisions. This module attempts to bridge the gap between economic theories learnt in other modules and the data-driven world beyond the classroom.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The aim of this module is to equip you with good practical skills in applied business economics, especially in the application of quantitative research techniques to research questions from different areas of business economics. The module will focus on data skills (organisation and manipulation of data, descriptive and explorative analysis), survey data and applied econometrics (regression models). You will learn to apply those techniques using one of the main statistics software package.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. demonstrate ability to understand the important features and properties of real-world data, and perform the necessary operations to organise and manipulate the data;
• 2. apply appropriate quantitative techniques based on the research question and features of the data;
• 3. perform independent empirical analysis using a statistical software.

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 4. combine knowledge of economic theory with the necessary quantitative and data skills to undertake applied empirical work in business economics.

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 6. demonstrate analytical and critical thinking;
• 7. demonstrate the ability to use statistical software.

Syllabus plan

• Module aims and limitations
• Introduction to Statistical Software (STATA)
• First steps in empirical analysis: descriptive statistics and explorative analysis
• Organising your work
• Hypothesis Testing
• Applied linear regression, diagnostics and tests
• Prediction, Goodness-of-fit and Modelling issues
• Non-linear regression models
• Binary choice models
• Working with surveys

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Hill, R.C, Griffiths, W.E and Lim, G.C (2011) Principles of Econometrics, 4th edition,

John Wiley & Sons. Adkins, L.C. and Hill, R.C. (2011) Using Stata for Principles of Econometrics, 4^th edition, John Wiley & Sons.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

A Gentle Introduction to Stata by Alan C. Acock

Data Analysis Using Stata by Ulrich Kohler and Frauke Kreuter

Cortinhas, C. and Black, K. (2012), Statistics for Business and Management, 1^st European Edition, Wiley Data:

UK Data Service (http://ukdataservice.ac.uk/ ) http://www.nber.org/data/

Key words search

Applied Econometrics for Business