School

of Economics

Introductory Econometrics
ECON2206/ECON3290 Tutorial Program Session 2, 2013

Week 2 Tutorial Exercises

Readings
Read Chapter 1 thoroughly. Make sure that you know the meanings of the Key Terms at the chapter end.

Problem Set (these will be discussed in tutorial classes)

Q1. Wooldridge 1.1 Q2. Wooldridge 1.2 Q3. Wooldridge C1.3 Q4. Wooldridge C1.4 (These are selected from the end-of-chapter Problems and Computer Exercises.)

Computer Exercise and STATA Hints

All data files and data description files are in the course website, suffixed with .raw and .des respectively. Sometimes, data files may have a .txt or .csv suffix. You must always read the description files! Example STATA do-files, are also posted in the course website, suffixed with .do. The solution do-files will be posted with one week delay. One of the course objectives is to learn to use STATA. To complete Q3 and Q4, you should follow the steps below. o Step 1. Create a work folder, say F:\ie, on your USB drive or your computer. o Step 2. Download data and description files to the work folder. o Step 3. Follow the instructions shown in the first lecture to run bwght_1st.do and read the output carefully. o Step 4. Make sure that you understand the effect of each command in bwght_1st.do. o Step 5. Modify bwght_1st.do to complete Q3 and Q4.

Week 3 Tutorial Exercises

Readings
Read Chapter 2 thoroughly. Make sure that you know the meanings of the Key Terms at the chapter end.

Review Questions (these may or may not be discussed in tutorial classes)

The minimum requirement for OLS to be carried out for the data set {(xi, yi), i=1,,n} with the sample size n > 2 is that the sample variance of x is positive. In what circumstances is the sample variance of x zero? The OLS estimation of the simple regression model has the following properties: a) the sum of the residuals is zero; b) the sample covariance of the residuals and x is zero. Why? How would you relate them to the least squares principle? Convince yourself that the point ( x , y ) , the sample means of x and y, is on the sample regression function (SRF), which is a straight line. How do you know that SST = SSE + SSR is true? Which of the following models is (are) nonlinear model(s)? a) sales = 0 /[1 + exp(-1 ad_expenditure)] + u; b) sales = 0 + 1 log(ad_expenditure) + u; c) sales = 0 + 1 exp(ad_expenditure) + u; d) sales = exp(0 + 1 ad_expenditure + u). Can you follow the proofs of Theorems 2.1-2.3?

Problem Set (these will be discussed in tutorial classes)

Q1. Wooldridge 2.4 Q2. Wooldridge 2.7 Q3. Wooldridge C2.6 Q4. Wooldridge C2.7 (not in 3rd edition)

Week 4 Tutorial Exercises

Readings
Read Chapter 3 thoroughly. Make sure that you know the meanings of the Key Terms at the chapter end.

Review Questions (these may or may not be discussed in tutorial classes)

What do we mean when we say regress wage on educ and expr? Why and under what circumstance do we need to control for expr in the regression model in order to quantify the effect of educ on wage? What is the bias of an estimator? What is the omitted variable bias? What is the consequence of adding an irrelevant variable to a regression model? What is the requirement of the ZCM assumption, in your own words? Why assuming E(u) = 0 is not restrictive when an intercept is included in the regression model? In terms of notation, why do we need two subscripts for independent variables? Using OLS to estimate a multiple regression model with k independent variables and an intercept, how many first-order conditions are there? How do you know that the OLS estimators are linear combination of the observations on the dependent variable? What is the Gauss-Markov theorem? Try to explain why R2 never decreases (it is likely to increase) when additional explanatory variables are added to the regression model. What is an endogenous explanatory variable? An exogenous explanatory variable? What is multicollinearity and its likely effect on the OLS estimators?

Problem Set (these will be discussed in tutorial classes)

Q1. Wooldridge 3.2 Q2. Wooldridge 3.10 Q3. Wooldridge C3.2 Q4. Wooldridge C3.6

Week 5 Tutorial Exercises Assignment 1 Due this week

Readings
Read Chapter 4.1 to 4.3 thoroughly. Make sure that you know the meanings of the Key Terms for those sections of the chapter at the chapter end.

Review Questions (these may or may not be discussed in tutorial classes)

What are the CLM assumptions? What is the sampling distribution of the OLS estimators under the CLM assumptions? What are the standard errors of the OLS estimators? What is the null hypothesis about a parameter? What is a one-tailed (two-tailed) alternative hypothesis? In testing hypotheses, what is a Type 1 (Type 2) error? What is the level of significance? The decision rule we use can be stated as reject the null if the t-statistic exceeds the critical value. How is the critical value determined? Justify the statement Given the observed test statistic, the p-value is the smallest significant level at which the null hypothesis would be rejected. What is the 90% confidence interval for a parameter? In constructing a confidence interval for a parameter, what is the level of confidence? When the level of confidence increases, how would the width of the confidence interval change (holding other things fixed)? Try to convince yourself that the event the 90% confidence interval covers a hypothesised value of the parameter is the same as the event the null of the parameter being the hypothesised value cannot be rejected in favour of the two-tailed alternative at the 10% level of significance.

Problem Set (these will be discussed in tutorial classes)

Q1. Wooldridge 4.1 Q2. Wooldridge 4.2 Q3. Wooldridge 4.5 Q4. Wooldridge C4.8

Week 6 Tutorial Exercises

Discussion of Assignment 1

Week 7 Tutorial Exercises

Readings
Read Chapter 4.4-4.6 thoroughly. Make sure that you know the meanings of all the Key Terms at the chapter end.

Review Questions (these may or may not be discussed in tutorial classes)

How would you test hypotheses about a single linear combination of parameters? What are exclusion restrictions for a regression model? What are restricted and unrestricted models? How do you compute the F-statistic, given that you have SSRs? What are general linear restrictions on parameters? What is the test for the overall significance of a regression? How would you report your regression results?

Problem Set (these will be discussed in tutorial classes)

Q1. Wooldridge 4.6 Q2. Wooldridge 4.8 Q3. Wooldridge 4.10 Q4. Wooldridge C4.9

Week 8 Tutorial Exercises

Readings
Read Chapters 5 and 6 thoroughly. Make sure that you know the meanings of the Key Terms at the chapter end.

Review Questions (these may or may not be discussed in tutorial classes)

What are the advantages of using the log of a variable in regression? Find the rules of thumb for taking logs. Be careful when you interpret the coefficients of explanatory variables in a model where some variables are in logarithm. Do you remember Table 2.3? How do you compute the change in y caused by x when the model is built for log(y)? Why do we need the interaction terms in regression models? What is the adjusted R-squared? What is the difference between it and the R-squared? How do you construct interval prediction for given x-values? How do you predict y for given x-values when the model is built for log(y)? What is involved in residual analysis?

Problem Set (these will be discussed in tutorial classes)

Q1. Wooldridge 6.4 Q2. Wooldridge 6.5 Q3. Wooldridge C6.3 (C6.2 in the 3rd Edition) Q4. Wooldridge C6.8

Week 9 Tutorial Exercises Assignment 2 Due this week

Readings
Read Chapter 7 thoroughly. Make sure that you know the meanings of the Key Terms at the chapter end.

Review Questions (these may or may not be discussed in tutorial classes)

What is a qualitative factor? Give some examples. How do you use dummy variables to represent qualitative factors? How do you use dummy variables to represent an ordinal variable? How do you test for differences in regression functions across different groups? What can you achieve by interacting group dummy variables with other regressors? What is program evaluation? What are the interpretations of the PRF and SRF when the dependent variable is binary? What are the shortcomings of the LPM? Does MLR5 hold for the LPM?

Problem Set (these will be discussed in tutorial classes)

Q1. Wooldridge 7.4 Q2. Wooldridge 7.6 Q3. Wooldridge 7.9 Q4. Wooldridge C7.13

Week 10 Tutorial Exercises

Discussion and Review of Assignment 2

Readings
Read Chapter 8 thoroughly. Make sure that you know the meanings of the Key Terms at the chapter end.

Review Questions (these may or may not be discussed in tutorial classes)

What is heteroskedasticity in a regression model? In the presence of heteroskedasticity, are the t-stat and F-stat from the usual OLS still valid? Why? Are there any other problems with the OLS under heteroskedasticity? What are the heteroskedasticity-robust standard errors? How do you use them in SHAZAM? How do you detect if there is heteroskedasticity? If heteroskedasticity is present in a known form, how would you estimate the model? If heteroskedasticity is present in an unknown form, how would you estimate the model? What are the steps in the FGLS estimation? How would you handle the heteroskedasticity of the LPM?

Problem Set (these will be discussed in tutorial classes)

Q2. Wooldridge 8.2 Q3. Wooldridge 8.3 Q4. Wooldridge 8.5 Q5. Wooldridge C8.10

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Week 11 Tutorial Exercises

Readings
Read Chapter 9 thoroughly. Make sure that you know the meanings of the Key Terms at the chapter end.

Review Questions (these may or may not be discussed in tutorial classes)

What is functional form misspecification? What is its major consequence in regression analysis? How would you test for functional form misspecification? What are nested models? And, nonnested models? What is the purpose of testing one model against another? How would you test for two nonnested models? What is a proxy variable? What are the conditions for a proxy variable to be valid in regression analysis? Can you analyse the consequences of measurement errors? In what circumstances missing observations will cause major concerns in regression analysis? What is exogenous sample selection? What is endogenous sample selection? What are outliers and influential observations? Consider the simple regression model yi = + ( + bi)xi + ui for i = 1, 2,, n, where the slop parameter contains a random variable bi; and are constant parameters. Assume that the usual MLR1-5 hold for yi = + xi + ui, ; E(bi|xi) = 0 and Var(bi|xi) = 2. If we regress y on x with a intercept, will the estimator of the slope parameter be biased from ? Will the usual OLS standard errors be valid for statistical inference?

Problem Set (these will be discussed in tutorial classes)

Q1. Wooldridge 9.1 Q2. Wooldridge 9.3 Q3. Wooldridge 9.5 Q4. Wooldridge C9.3

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Week 12 Tutorial Exercises

Readings
Read Chapter 10 thoroughly. Make sure that you know the meanings of the Key Terms at the chapter end.

Review Questions (these may or may not be discussed in tutorial classes)

What are the main features of time series data? How do time series data differ from cross- sectional data? What is a stochastic process and its realisation? What is serial correlation or autocorrelation? What is a finite distributed lag model? What is the long-run propensity (LRP)? How would you estimate the LRP and the associated standard error (say in SHAZAM)? What are TS1-6 (assumptions about time series regression)? How do they differ from the assumptions in MLR1-6? What are strictly exogenous regressors and contemporaneously exogenous regressors? What is a trending time series? What is a time trend? Why may a regression with trending time series produce spurious results? Why would you include a time trend in regressions with trending variables? What is seasonality in a time series? Give an example of time series variable with seasonality. For quarterly data, how would you define seasonal dummy variables for a regression model?

Problem Set
Q1. Wooldridge 10.1 Q2. Wooldridge 10.2 Q3. Wooldridge 10.7 Q4. Wooldridge C10.10

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Week 13 Tutorial Exercises

Readings
Read Chapter 13 thoroughly. Make sure that you know the meanings of the Key Terms at the chapter end.

Review Questions (these may or may not be discussed in tutorial classes)

What are pooled cross sections? How do they compare to a single cross sectional sample? What is policy analysis? Give an example. How are pooled cross sections used for policy analysis? What is the difference-in-difference estimator? Estimating what? What is a set of panel data? How does it differ from a set of pooled cross sections? What is an unobserved (or fixed) effect model? What does the unobserved (or fixed) effect represent? Is there a fixed effect in the usual cross sectional regression? What is the first-differenced estimation for a two-period panel? Dose the validity of the first- differenced estimation rely on the assumption that the unobserved or fixed effect is uncorrelated with the regressors? Can we estimate the unobserved or fixed effect with a two-period panel? Comment on the advantage of using panel data for policy analysis.

Problem Set (these will be discussed in tutorial classes)

Q1. Wooldridge 13.1 Q2. Wooldridge 13.2 Q3. Wooldridge 13.7 Q4. Wooldridge C13.5

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