Administrative Details
ECON5205 Econometrics
Danielle Hayek
Staff
 Lectures have been pre-recorded by A/Prof Jane Zhang (1st half) and Dr
Fanghua Li (2nd half)
 Lecturer-in-charge and Seminar Leader:
 Dr Danielle Hayek
 Email: d.hayek@unsw.edu.au
 Office hours: Tuesday 12:30-13:30 and by appointment
Assumed Knowledge
 ECON5103 (Business Economics) and COMM5055 (Quantitative Methods for
Business) are pre-requisites and co-requisites
 Follow up courses include ECON5206 (Financial Econometrics), ECON5408
(Applied Econometric Methods), and ECON5403 (Econometric Theory)
 Course is about econometrics not mathematics
 However, basic math knowledge is assumed
 Econometrics services Economics and Business (& social sciences in general)
 Assume some basic familiarity with concepts from these disciplines e.g. demand
curves & elasticity of demand
Teaching Resources
 Wooldridge: Introductory Econometrics 7th Edition provides detail, basic
reference material and most seminar problems
 Previous editions are fine to use, there may be some mismatched content
 Lectures provide
 Overview – lecture notes will be sparse
 Emphasis of key points
 Some worked examples and some STATA
 Seminars (start in week 2) provide
 Review (tutorial portion) and discussion opportunities
 STATA practice
Assessments
 Two Problem Sets
 Due March 10 (Week 4), April 21 (Week 10)
 In-session Test
 March 29 (Week 7)
 Reading discussion during weekly seminars (Weeks 2,3,4,5,7,8,9,10)
 Final Exam
Assessments
 You will need to learn the basics on how to program in STATA
 Check that you can access this software through MyAccess (Do it today!!)
 During lectures, you’ll be shown some of the basics of STATA
 Seminars in Weeks 3 and 4 are fully dedicated to STATA – please ensure you
have access to the software before these two classes!
Course Themes and Aims
 By the end of ECON5205 Econometrics, students will
 Have been provided experience in specifying and estimating models and
interpreting results to shed light on real problems
 Be able to understand linear regression and use it appropriately in applied work
 Have developed an appreciation of what econometrics models can and can’t do
 Have developed an awareness of pros and cons of different data sources
 Be able to use STATA to conduct econometric analyses
Econometrics
 What is econometrics?
 The use of statistical methods to analyse economic data (...but recently used for
other type of data)
 Econometricians typically analyse:
 Experimental data (as in other sciences)
 Non-experimental data (predominantly)
 Typical goals of econometric analysis
 Estimating relationships between economic variables
 Testing economic theories & hypotheses
 Forecasting economic variables
 Evaluating & implementing government & business policy
Goals of an Econometrics Model
 Example: We have data for different countries and years of the unemployment
rate and inflation
 Estimating relationships between economic variables
 When unemployment is high is inflation also high?
 Testing economic theories and hypotheses
 High inflation causes unemployment to go up
 Forecasting economic variables
 How high will inflation be next year
 Evaluating and implementing government policy & business policy
 If the Australian govt increases taxes, what happens to unemployment
Different econometric models are appropriate for different goals