QUANTITATIVE METHODS IN SOCIO-POLITICAL-ECONOMIC  RESEARCH – Session 1

IPS SEMINAR FOR THE PHD STUDENTS

Sorry that I am on a sick leave since 22.3.2019. Instead of regular sessions in the class, full of discussions, there will be a distant communication by e-mails. There will be reading assignments in form of my review of the topics from statistics, written as a cook-book. I will try to be as clear as possible (sorry if I do not succeed in full). Then there will be homework assignments, which should be delivered to vladimir.benacek@fsv.cuni.cz. We will communicate by e-mails only. Sorry if this will be rather awkward.

I do not know on which level of statistics you perform. THIS IS AN INTRODUCTION TO PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF STATISTICS AND REGRESSIONS. In case you are more advanced and experienced, you can have a restive approach (but still performing in assignments). Any textbook of statistics will help you as a feedback. There are numerous webpages on each topic on internet.

All the best,   Vladimír Benáček

Review of the course topics:

28.3.2018: Methodological pre-conditions for a meaningful quantitative analysis. Reading 1 on shortcomings of “soft sciences”.  Homework: Databases and the organisation of data.

4.4. Univariate descriptive statistics. Averages, correlations and data analysis by graphs. Distribution functions. Homework: practicing with the data.

11.4. The techniques and the art of regressions. Non-linearities and data transformations. Properties of data samples. Heteroskedasticity and elasticity. Homework.

18.4. Omitted variables syndrome, autocorrelation of residuals, multicollinearity.  Estimation of trends. Work with dummy variables. Homework.

All this will be illustrated on 12 practical exercises to be solved by Excel statistical instruments.