Econ413 FALL 2017 Page 6 of 6
Economics 413 SPRING 2018
Course page http://econ413.wustl.edu
Section 1 T Th 10-11:30
Section 2 T Th 1-2:30
Classroom: Seigle 306
Professor Parks
Office: Seigle 315B (directly across the hall from 303)
Handouts are available on the bookcase north of my office
Office Phone 935 5665
Office Hours: By Calendar Appointment
I am available, on request, before, between and after class on Tuesday and Thursday
but you must have an appointment – otherwise I will not be in my office.
Make an appointment with the YOUCANBOOKME link on the main page
http://econ413.wustl.edu
Course Outline
(dates/assigments/etc on the TOPICS page)
If you use Amazon, you could sign up for Amazon Student with my referral. You get PRIME for 6 months FREE!
Book: I decided that I did not like Studenmund enough to write my own notes. Please call them notes they are not a book. The notes, chapter 1 to chapter 11, are based on Studenmund and have his exercises at the end of each chapter. My gift to you is no $ for a text book. My penalty for you is that they are notes and not a published textbook. They are a second draft. The third and fourth and … drafts may improve. Alas, you will not see that improvement but you will help me improve. I apologize for the ugliness of the ‘notes’. You each save enough $ to buy me an outstanding case of beer and a pretty good bottle of single malt scotch. The notes are accessed on the topics web page and on the handouts page.
Book: Deirdre McCloskey, Economical Writing –
http://www.amazon.com/Economical-Writing-Second-Deirdre-McCloskey/dp/1577660633/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1293759907&sr=1-1 . No excuses that you can not get the book. It is available as a Kindle edition https://www.amazon.com/Economical-Writing-Second-Deirdre-McCloskey-ebook/dp/B0058V0M2W/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=
Handouts: You must pay the Department of Economics $30 for handouts (given out each lecture). If you do not pay, I will have to ask you to leave class and pay immediately. If you do not pay, you will get an F unless you drop the class. You must pay by September 6, 5 pm.
Take $30 cash or money order (no checks!) to Jessica Cain or Karen Rensing in the Economics Department Office Seigle 307.
Computer Software: Eviews 10 - available in the lab in Seigle 012. I believe that Eviews 9 or 9.5 are fine.
You may purchase Eviews for the PC directly from Eviews.com software for $100. Each full Eviews version may be installed on up to 3 of your computers. See https://shop.ihs.com/buy/en/ihs/software-eviews/eviews-academic-10-enterprise-standalone-for-windows You must email Eviews from your wustl email address.
You can run the full version of Eviews on a MAC with VMFusion or Parallels (about $90) plus a copy of Windows ($???). I have heard both run well - I have personal experience with a MAC and Parallels – I am using Parallels. Search google for VM FUSION versus PARALLELS for comparisons.
You may also purchase Eviews 9.5 Student Version directly online for $39.95. The largest defect of the Student Version is no programming and I have four programs which you must use in your project and in some of the homework. A second defect is limited clipboard which may be problematical. If you use the student version, you can save an Eviews data set on the student version, bring the Eviews data set to the lab and use the programs there to prepare the output. A free version, Student Version Lite, does not allow saving workfiles. You may be able to use the Lite version for some of the homework.
Spring 2014 and Fall 2015 I asked for comments about buying Eviews and/or using the lab. Read their evaluations http://econ413.wustl.edu/2014s/subs/041414/answers.html#eviews
http://econ413.wustl.edu/2015f/subs/112614/answers.html#eviews
Sorry, you must use Eviews
Course Requirements:
Paper/Project (25%)
Presentation (5%)
Pieces of the project (8%)
9 homeworks (52%)
Weekly submissions (10%)
Paper (25%)
Your paper topic is due February 6 via an online submission !!! See the topics page.
There is a handout about the paper http://econ413.wustl.edu/econometrics_paper.doc. You should start thinking about an econometric project now. On the home page of the course you will find student papers from prior years. Choosing a topic is the first major hurdle, and the second is getting data for the topic. In choosing a topic, you must determine whether the data is available. When you turn in your paper topic, you must have located the data.
Read Chapters 3 and 11. Those chapters have some information about an econometrics project/paper.
Choose a topic in which you are interested. Many choose sports topics. Other students have analyzed non-economic questions. For example, 'What determines a 'So you think you can dance' winner?'. No problem, no fault. The paper should answer a question in which you are interested and the paper should tell a story about that question and answer. 'Significant' results are NOT required. Some of the best papers have had insignificant results! The best grades are given to the best questions and stories that have good econometric analysis.
You may want to replicate a prior paper (either published or a student paper). PERFECT. GREAT. PLEASE DO. But you must EXTEND the results and possibly the data. For example, a student did the Ramsey test for specification error on existing data - see http://econ413.wustl.edu/2009f/papers/KimD.doc .
To obtain data from a journal article, you MUST email or write the authors IMMEDIATELY. Some authors will respond and some will not. Some journal articles have data online. For example, the AER has an online data archive. A few years ago, I made a list of the AER data sets. Other data archives are listed on the RESOURCES page of the web site.
Many questions in economics can NOT be answered in an econometrics paper using regression. Econometrics requires data. The minimum for the project in this course is 100 observations and 6 variables. If your observations are teams, or states, you will need observations for two or more years. For states, please do not use contiguous years – 5 or 10 years separation is better than contiguous. A minimum is 100 observations and 5 variables. More observations and more variables exhibits more work and deserves a better grade!
Presentation (5%)
You must prepare a 6 minute presentation of your paper, with PowerPoint slides. The presentation will be made in class. There will be time (2 minutes) for questions. One student in the class is randomly assigned to ask questions about your presentation. Grades for the presentation include how well you answer the questions that are asked. And the class will 'rate' the papers and those ratings will determine your grade for the presentation.
Pieces of the Project (8%)
Pieces of the project assignments require the following:
1.0 % Topic Due – title and description;
1.0% references due – academic references about your topic;
1.5% Paper Outline – good outlines make good writing!
2.5 % preliminary results – summary statistics – don't wait until a day before the project is due to get your data!
2.0% preliminary table of regression results –at least three regressions in tabled format.
Each of those assignments is via web form or email submission and links are on the topics list.
Homework (52%)
Each of 9 homeworks worth %5.7778
You may find this course is different. One of the reasons is that many if not most courses seem to lecture over the homework. I do NOT lecture directly about the homework. As there are no tests, the homework serves a separate learning purpose from what I am trying to accomplish in lecture. Be sure that you understand this important difference with other courses.
You may, after attempting the homework, get help from the Assistant in Instruction, from other students, or from me. Both the Assistants in Instruction and I will not work with you if you have not made a vigorous attempt at doing the homework before contacting us.
Homework is to be your own work – not that of another student and not that of previous students and not prior answer sheets. You may work with other students – I hope you do. Group learning is learning. Do not freeload on the work of others and do not take advantage of other's work. We will be harsh with those that copy prior answers or current or prior student's answers. First offense is a 0 for the question, second offense is a 0 for the homework, and the third offense is an F for the course. Submitted homework is your work.
In grading the homework, you may think that, at times, we are picky. We are NOT trying to deny you an A in the course. Inadvertently, we may be denying you an A+. Our goal is to help you learn, and one way to help you is to force you into thinking about these problems. If your paper is good, that can make up for lost points on the homework. Our grading (both the Assistants to the Instructors and I) may increase your grade beyond the maximum score for an exceptional homework or exceptional paper - but we will not decrease it! Hence, even if your homework does not justify an A-, you might just get one with hard work, good weekly submissions, and a good paper.
You may rewrite an answer and request in hard copy that Assistant in Instruction regrade the question(s). Up to ½ of the missed points will be awarded based on the Assistant in Instruction's discretion. Rewrites must indicate not only a correct answer but also why you think your answer had points deducted. You, the Assistant in Instruction, and I can learn from this process. You must include your original homework with the regrade. Unless you have printed out the answer available online, the Assistant in Instruction will not answer questions about grading.l
One student wrote in evaluating the course
This is my #1 criticism for the course: there is no incentive to learn the material after it has been the focus of an assignment. I would get back homework, see I did something wrong, then move along with my day. I think allowing people to resubmit a homework to receive half of the points back would inspire people to understand their mistakes.
Starting in 2014, we (Assistants in Instruction and I) have allowed regrades. A few students commented:
I really liked that we are allowed to submit our homework for re-grading. This allows us to learn from our mistakes and I think it's aligned with the spirit of learning
The regrades helped me learn a lot more than I would have without it.
I like the chance to submit for regrade as a learning experience.
We may be wrong. Our experience is that many of the regrades/resubmits are to get a few more points without much learning. Our policy is that the MAXIMUM you may achieve after a resubmit/regrade is 92.5% of the total possible. E.g., if you scored 90 out of 100 and submitted for regrade the MAXIMUM after regrade is 92.5, not 95. Hopefully the policy does not detract from learning and allows for corrections to major mistakes.
Homework 11 is an 'extra' credit assignment. It is not a 'replace' homework. The number of points that you can obtain depends on your score on homework 11 and your total score for the 9 assigned homeworks. For example, if your score on the 9 homeworks was 35 and you scored 100 on homework 11, you would get 13.3 added to your 35 which is about 2.5 times the score for one homework. See the topics list for the points available on homework 11.
The Assistants in Instruction are responsible for grading the homework. Homework is due on Thursdays and will be graded and returned on Tuesdays. Regrades must be submitted the Thursday after the homework was due. Solutions are posted online by Tuesday when homework is returned. If you have questions about the grading, ask the Assistant in Instructions first.
Homework is returned in a file cabinet in the departmental office (next to 306). The homeworks are available after 11am each Tuesday if not before.
Weekly submissions (10%)
The weekly submission I use is similar to a teaching device called the 'One Minute Paper'. The 'One Minute Paper' has students write, for one minute at the end of class, the most confusing thing about the lecture. The teacher then reads those papers and the beginning of the next lecture clarifies concepts.
My weekly submissions are a bit more than a 'One Minute Paper' but the rationale is similar. The submission indicates to me parts of the lecture or notes that have been confusing. It helps me keep 'tabs' on what you the student is learning or not learning in the course. Beyond the 'One Minute Paper' concept, the submission also (hopefully) requires you to read the books and think!
Each submission is worth up to 1% of your grade. There are 12 submission due dates, so you can miss two and not be hurt. The last evaluation is worth between 1% and -3%. Don’t do the last evaluation and you loose 3%. If you had done 9 of the first 11 evaluations, and do the last evaluation, you would get 10%. If you did 9 and not the last, you would get 6%. The last evaluation can make a 4% difference in your grade total of 100%.
NOTE that you can do an evaluation based on the books readings. If you are unable to attend lecture, then in the lecture portion, you should so state (and why). In each submission, you MUST:
- indicate the most confusing (with page number) and most important topic/concept in the assigned readings in the notes. Please help me improve the notes.
- indicate the most confusing (with page number) and most important topic/concept in the assigned readings in McCloskey;
- indicate the most important and most confusing (with slide number) topic/concept in the lecture;
- indicate what you would have me do differently in the lecture;
- optionally ask questions about the material. You may at the end of each of the other 4 sections ask a question. But you are not required to ask a question. If you ask a question about the notes or McCloskey, please indicate a page number. Without a page number, I can not answer the question!
The topics page has a link to the submission form.