ECON 3210 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Econometrics, Econometric Model
7 Jan 2018
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Document Summary
Topic: the nature of econometrics and economic data. Econometrics is a set of tools by which economists (and others) analyze data. Estimate economic relationships: test economic theories, forecast economic variables, evaluate government and business policy. Some examples of analyses involving econometrics: estimating the relationship between top marginal tax rates and employment. Testing whether potential college students are (expected) utility maximizers. Evaluating job training programs designed to get unemployed back to work. Econometrics is its own discipline (separate from statistics) because it focuses on problems inherent in analyzing data generated by individuals, firms, and other agents acting strategically, and interacting with one another. We usually have access to non-experimental data, which are sometimes called observational or retrospective data these are data sets collected in a passive manner, after we observe outcomes on individuals, firms, schools, etc. We simply act as observers" of what has happened and then try to learn from what we observe.
