Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-xtgtn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T11:14:51.683Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

11 - The Measurement Box Model

from PART 2 - INFERENCE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Humberto Barreto
Affiliation:
Wabash College, Indiana
Frank Howland
Affiliation:
Wabash College, Indiana
Get access

Summary

It has generally been customary certainly to regard as an axiom the hypothesis that if any quantity has been determined by several direct observations, made under the same circumstances and with equal care, the arithmetical mean of the observed values affords the most probable value. …

Carl Friedrich Gauss

Introduction

Regression is the dominant method of empirical analysis in economics. It has two basic applications: description and inference. The first eight chapters of this book use regression for description. Chapters 9 and 10 introduce and review tools for making statistical inference. We are now ready to see how regression is used when the data are a sample from a population.

The next few chapters prepare the ground for the study of regression as a tool for inference and forecasting. Inference in general means reasoning from factual knowledge or evidence. In statistics, we have a sample drawn from a population and use the sample to infer something about the population.

For example, suppose we have data on 1,178 people in the United States in 1989 selected at random from the adult working population. We have the level of experience and the wages of these people. Part 1 discusses the use of regression to provide a summary of the bivariate wage-experience data. Statistical inference aims at a much more ambitious goal. Instead of simply describing the relationship for those 1,178 people, we wish to discover the relationship between wage and experience for all of the adult workers in the United States.

Type
Chapter
Information
Introductory Econometrics
Using Monte Carlo Simulation with Microsoft Excel
, pp. 281 - 302
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×