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ECON 214 Outline 2023-2024

Course outline

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39 views4 pages

ECON 214 Outline 2023-2024

Course outline

Uploaded by

Ntobea
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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UNIVERSITY OF GHANA

(All rights reserved)

DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
SECOND SEMESTER 2023/2024 ACADEMIC YEAR
COURSE SYLLABUS

ECON 214: Elements of Statistics for Economists (3 Credits)

Lecture Period: Monday 7:30-9:20am (Group A); Wednesday 11:30am-1:20pm (Groups


B&C)
Venue: NNB1

Course Instructors:
Name: Monica Lambon-Quayefio (MLQ)
E-mail: [email protected]
Office Location: Dept. of Econ Annex Room 8
Office Hours: Monday 10am-12noon

Name: Mr. Theodore Antwi-Asare (TAA)


E-mail: [email protected]
Office Location: Dept of Economics, Room
Office Hours: To be communicated

Teaching Assistants: Ms. Dorcas Asaah Peprah

Course Overview
This course aims to familiarize students with basic statistical techniques and their applications to
the field of Economics. The course will equip students with elements of statistical methods used
in collecting, organising, summarising, presenting, analysing and interpreting data. It provides
students with the foundation for further studies in Statistics while providing skills useful for
economic research.

Course Objectives
The objective of the course is to introduce the student to:

 The importance of statistics in economic analysis


 Different types of data and the use appropriate methods to summarise and analyse them
 Graphical and numerical techniques to summarising data series
 The essential concept of probability
 How to make use of probability theory to help make decisions in uncertain situations
 The most common probability distributions and solve a range of probability problems
using the appropriate probability distribution
 The importance of probability theory in drawing valid inferences from a sample data
 Calculating point and interval estimates of parameters of interest from sample data
 The principles underlying hypothesis testing and testing hypotheses about the true value
of various population parameters

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Learning Outcomes
By the end of the course, the student should be able to:

 Explain the importance of statistics in economic analysis


 Recognise different types of data and use appropriate methods to summarise and analyse
them
 Use graphical and numerical techniques to summarise data series
 Understand the essential concept of probability
 Know how to make use of probability theory to help make decisions in uncertain
situations
 Recognise the most common probability distributions and solve a range of probability
problems using the appropriate probability distribution
 Recognise the importance of probability theory in drawing valid inferences from a
sample data
 Construct estimates of parameters of interest from sample data, in a variety of
circumstances
 Understand the principles underlying hypothesis testing and test hypotheses about the
true value of various population parameters
Plagiarism Policy
Plagiarism in any form is unacceptable in the University of Ghana and shall be treated as a
serious offence. Appropriate sanctions, as stipulated in the Plagiarism Policy, will be applied
when students are found to have violated the Plagiarism policy.

Assessment and Grading


The course will be graded over a 100%; Interim Assessment (30%) and End of Semester Exams
(70%). Interim Assessment will be held at the end of the 6 th or 7th week (To be confirmed by
6th week). Students who do not turn up for the interim assessment will receive a score of zero.
The grading scale is as follows:

 80+ = A; 75-79 = B+; 70-74 = B; 65-69 = C+; 60-64 = C; 55-59 = D+; 50-54 = D;
45-49 = E; 44% and below = F
Practical Work
Students will be assigned practical assignments to facilitate their understanding of the course
material and to develop some basic skills in data analyses. Students will be put in groups of 5 to
work on the assignments. All assignments will be uploaded on Sakai. Submission of all
assignments will be on Sakai. Each member of the team will take turns to submit their
assignments.
Advice
Note that this course requires regular attendance at lectures and regular practice on your own.
You will be given practice questions and assignments. Do well to complete each of these
assignments on your own. Please do not hesitate to bring challenges up for discussion during
lectures and our consultation hours. Remember, practice makes perfect!

Main Text:
Barrow Michael, (2009) “Statistics for Economics, Accounting and Business Studies” Fourth
Edition, Pearson Education Limited

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Other Recommended Texts:
1. Bluman, Allan G., (2004) “Elementary Statistics” 5th Edition, McGraw-Hill Inc., NY
2. Freud E. John, “Modern Elementary Statistics” 7 th Edition: Prentice Hall International
Edition
3. Murray R. Spiegel & L. J. Stephens (1999) “Theory and Problems of Statistics” Third
Edition” Schaums Outline Series, McGraw- Hill
4. Newbold, P., Carlson, W.L., and Thorne, B. (2007) “Statistics for Business and
Economics” 6th Edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, New Jersey

Course Syllabus and Delivery Plan


Week 1 [MLQ]
Introduction and course overview; Introduction to statistics: Descriptive and inferential
statistics; Population and samples; Types of data; Levels of measurements (ordinal, nominal,
interval, ratio); Methods of data collection.

Week 2. [MLQ]
Data presentation; frequency, relative and cumulative frequency distributions; Graphical
methods of data presentation: bar charts, pie charts, histograms, frequency polygons and
frequency curves.

Week 3 [MLQ]
Numeric summary measures for grouped and ungrouped data: Measures of central tendency:
mean, weighted mean, median, mode, percentiles.
Measures of Dispersion: range, variance, standard deviation, coefficient of variation, skewness;
applications.

Week 4 [MLQ]
Probability theory and theorems: Mutually exclusive and non-exclusive events and rules of
addition; independent events and conditional probability. Rules of multiplication;

Week 5 [MLQ]
Determination of number of outcomes: multiplication, permutation, combination; applications.

Week 6 [MLQ]
Probability Distributions; Random variables, Discrete versus continuous random variables,
probability distribution of discrete random variables: calculating expectations and variance.

Week 7 [TAA]
The Binomial and Poisson distributions.
The Normal probability distribution; percentile points for normally distributed variables;
sampling distribution of the sample mean. the Central Limit Theorem; applications

Week 8 [TAA]
Statistical estimation: Estimation of the population mean: confidence interval for the mean using
the Normal and student’s “t” distributions; determining the required sample size.

Week 9 [TAA]
Estimation of population proportions: confidence intervals for the population proportions;
applications Hypothesis testing: Basic steps in the hypothesis testing

Week 10 [TAA]
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Hypothesis testing: Basic steps in the hypothesis testing; Type I and Type II errors; test of
hypothesis about the mean using the Normal distribution.

Week 11 [TAA]
Test of differences between two means; test of hypothesis about the mean for small samples
using the student’s t-distribution.

Week 12 [TAA]
Testing of hypothesis for sample proportions and the differences between sample proportions.

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