THIS IS THE COURSE CONTENT FOR ECON/BNAD/MGMT 276 IN 2016 PRE-SESSION SUMMER (15-DAY SEMESTER)

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Class Schedule
Monday to Friday: 1pm--3.50pm in MCLND 128

Office Hours
Monday to Thursday: 4pm--5pm in MCLND 401A

Course Materials
I do not require any textbooks. You can use my lecture notes to study. I recommend the followings for those who want to get more basic and intuitive insights of statistics:

* Essentials of statistics for business and economics by David R. Anderson, Dennis J. Sweeney and Thomas A. Williams (ASW)
This is one of the easy textbooks that will be of value to anyone who is interested in learning a bit more about economic statistics. The focus is on core topics but the book does do a good job of covering most of the topics that people will want to learn about this subject.

* Cartoon Guide to Statistics by Larry Gonick and Woollcott Smith
This book is perfect for people who want a simple introduction to statistics. The cartoons make the subject easy to comprehend and are actually quite fun. Even some very complex statistical ideas are made easy through the use of cartoons. If you want to learn all about basic statistics without putting in a lot of effort then this might be the best book to choose.

Course Syllabus
Syllabus

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Course Outline and Lecture Notes

Day 1. May 16: Data & Statistics. Descriptive Statistics I
Lecture note 1
Reference to ASW: Ch. 1--2
Restaurant Data to graph the charts in the lecture.
Errata:
Slide 7: the data has 10 elements, i.e. 10 restaurants, which are entities on which data are collected.
Slide 33: the old slide is the histogram with classes 11-17.9, 18-24.9, 25-31.9, 32-38.9, 39-45.9. It should be replaced by a histogram with the classes: 11-18, 18.1-25, 25.1-32, 32.1-39, 39.1-46

Day 2. May 17: Descriptive Statistics II
Lecture note 2
Reference to ASW: Ch. 2--3
Errors in the handed out in-class exercise solutions:
Slide 2: the data only has 18 cities, instead of 20 in the hand out.
Slide 8: the 5th column (and the 1st row) should be y_i - y_bar instead of x_i - x_bar. Similarly for the second term in the 6th column

Day 3. May 18: Quiz 1. Probability Theory I
Lecture note 3
Reference to ASW: Ch. 4

Day 4. May 19: Probability Theory II
Lecture note 4
Reference to ASW: Ch. 4
Errors in the handed out in-class exercise solutions:
In the exercise 2, the question should say "US Census Bureau data show that 14% of the ''consumer population'' is 18 to 24 years old. And we assume this ''consumer population'' only includes people who are above 18 years old.
Slide 5 (exercise 2 solution):
(a) the third term should be P(Y|U)P(U) / P(Y)
(b) the third term should be P(O|U) P(U) / P(O)

Day 5. May 20: Midterm 1. Random Variables & Discrete Variable Probability Distribution
Lecture note 5
Reference to ASW: Ch. 5
Exercises

Day 6. May 23: Discrete Variable Probability Distribution
Use lecture note 5
Reference to ASW: Ch. 5
Announcement:
The quiz 2 will cover only lecture note 5 (and LN5 exercises above) and the joint probability distribution table (seen in LN4 and test 1).
This sheet will be given in the quiz 2

Day 7. May 24: Continuous Variable Probability Distribution I
Lecture note 6
Reference to ASW: Ch. 6

Day 8. May 25: Quiz 2. Continuous Variable Probability Distribution II
Use lecture note 6
Reference to ASW: Ch. 6
This sheet will be given in the quiz 2

Day 9. May 26: Sampling. Point Estimation. Sampling Distributions
Lecture note 7
Excel file to do simulation for sample mean and sample variance and sample proportion
Reference to ASW: Ch. 7
Annoucements:
The test 2 covers lecture notes 5, 6 (discrete and continuous random variables)
More Practice Questions
The followings will be given in the test 2:
Z-Table
Handed out formula sheet

Day 10. May 27: Midterm 2. Interval Estimation
Lecture note 8
Reference to ASW: Ch. 7, 8
Supplement:
t-table
Lecture 8 Exercise Solution

Day 11. May 30: Memorial Day. No Class

Day 12. May 31: Interval Estimation (cont'd). Hypothesis Test I.
Hypothesis Test is in Lecture Note 9 below
Lecture note 9
Reference to ASW: Ch. 8, 9
Supplement:
Lecture 9 Exercise Solution

Day 13. June 1: Quiz 3. Hypothesis Test II
Continue lecture note 9
Reference to ASW: Ch. 9
Quiz 3 covers LN 7, 8, and the normal probability distribution (similar to question 8 in Test 2)
The followings will be handed out in the quiz 3:
Z-Table
t-table
Handed out formula sheet

Day 14. June 2: Simple Linear Regression. Comprehensive Review.
Reference to ASW: Ch. 12
Lecture Note 10

The final exam conceptually covers everything from lecture notes 1 to 9, emphasizing the lecture notes 5--9 (discrete and continuous probability distribution and statistical inferences).
How to prepare for the Final Exam:
Do all questions in Test 1 (except questions 20--27).
Do all questions in Test 2
All questions in Quiz 3
Do all execises in lecture notes 7, 8, 9. You can choose to learn either critical value approach or p-value approach to test the hypothesis.
Important concepts: sample variance, sample standard deviation, sample mean, median, sample covariance, correlation coefficient, recognize probability of some events, conditional probability, variance, mean, standard deviation, discrete probability function, requirements for a valid probability functions, binomial distribution, Poisson distribution, uniform distribution, normal distribution, standard normal distribution, point estimation, sampling distribution, probability by using sampling distribution, interval estimation, hypothesis testing (two tailed, lower tailed, upper tailed)

More Practice Questions on Statistical Inference Part (not required)
Previous Tests in blank format for practice
Test 1
Test 2
Quiz 3