Introduction to Statistics: Self-Paced Course Summer 2016

Welcome to the students of online Self paced Summer course on "Introduction to Statistics"developed by Dr. Asad Zaman, Vice Chancellor, PIDE. The department of Econometrics and Statistics, PIDE has offered this course particularly for the already enrolled students from 3rd semester (to be commenced in Fall, 2016) of MPhil and PhD students who are still in course work. It is required to complete the course before commencement of new semester.

All students should subscribe to this blog, as it will be used to deliver notices about the course i.e. lectures, quizzes and assessment details. ALSO, students can use the blog to post comments and ask questions about the course.Although this course only covers basic concepts (mostly), it does so in a new way, so that even people with advanced training in statistics will find many of the ideas to be very new, and different from what they have been taught. This is a unique course which offers a deep learning experience to students who make an effort.


Material for the course is gathered on the following website:

Self Paced Course Summer 2016


All students are encouraged to watch the lecture delivered by Dr. Asad Zaman at PIDE, in which unique Islamic approach to education is explained. It conveys the message of Allama Iqbal to the Muslim youth:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgfJxi0GdwA

Intro Stats at Arid Agri U- March 2016

Welcome to students from Arid Agricultural University. Four sections of Intro to Statistics will be taught by Uzma and Nadia under my supervision. All students should subscribe to this blog, as it will be used to deliver notices about the course. ALSO, students can use the blog to post comments and ask questions about the course.

Material for the course is gathered on the following website:

Intro Stats: Arid Agricultural University

This will be unique course which will offer a deep learning experience to students who make an effort. It will require a lot of work from the students. We will follow the principle of the "INVERTED CLASSROOM" which has proven extremely effective. In the inverted classroom, lectures are delivered outside class, while homework and discussion takes place inside class. The sequence of videotaped lectures for the classroom has already been taped and is available from the link given above. In early March, I will personally take a first combined class for all four sections, after which separate classes will be held for each section by Uzma and Nadia on a routine basis. We will provide an assignment to be done BEFORE coming to class, which will involve watching a lecture and doing a quiz on it. To ensure compliance, a quiz very similar to the one assigned to be done at home will be given at the beginning of class, in every class.

I recently delivered a lecture at PIDE, in which I explained the unique Islamic approach to education. I encourage all students to watch this lecture, which conveys the message of Allama Iqbal to the Muslim youth:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgfJxi0GdwA

Lessons on Hendry Methodology

While evaluating research proposals at a recent PSSP meeting, I realized that the level of knowledge about current econometric methodology both among researcher AND among those who evaluate -- is ABYSMALLY low. 

Now that I am VC PIDE, an adequate level of understanding of econometric methodology will automatically be expected from researchers. I would like to provide some training along these lines on a weekly basis. 

The FIRST place to start is the Davidson-Hendry-Srba-Yeo (DHSY) paper on the estimation the consumption function in England. This is my dividing line -- if you understand this paper, you can call yourself an econometrician, otherwise not. This is BY NO MEANS the state of the art -- it was written forty years ago, in 1970's. BUT it does provide the minimal level of understanding required to do sensible econometrics. Unfortunately, I have rarely seen applied work which conforms to this minimal level of understanding. 

I have created a website where I plan to do a detailed explanation of all the issues discussed in the paper. The truth is that the paper is highly compact -- a lot of deep ideas are condensed into a very brief text, so it requires a HASHIA -- explanations written on the margin. I and my students have finished the first section, which is available on the website DHSY

I would like to explain the Hendry methodology in the context of a critique of real paper which are submitted to our journals. I am attaching a few extracts from a recent submission which was rejected. 

The paper explores the relation between Economic Growth (EG) and FDI. After doing the usual integration cointegration analysis, author finds that EG and FDI are both stationary, and they are also co-integrated, so have a long term relationshipl. Then he runs a Vector Error Correction model following the Engle-Granger two step procedure -- first step is to save the errors from the cointegration equation, the second step is to run current EG and FDI on lagged errors. The results are displayed in the extract from the paper, which is available from the links below. The SECOND (and final equation) estimated in the paper is a regression Log (EG) on Log (FDI ) and some other variables -- you are asked to PROVIDE  a CRITIQUE of this SECOND equation on the basis of your understanding of the first section of DHSY

Please write your critique on THIS BLOG -- ALL are welcome to write there own critiques -- I will give a prize to the best critique -- I will also provide additional hints and information as we go along.

For Online Students: Certificate

Anyone who wishes to receive certificate, should submit final exam within one week. Also, take any missing quizzes, and submit midterm. These will be the bases for assessing pass/fail in the course and for issuing certificate.

Some More Details on Final Exam

The way I have made quizzes and exams in the past (and same method will be used on Final) is the following. I look at the lecture slides -- each of them present and try to explain a single (or a small number) of concepts. I make up a question which tests understanding of the concept explained on that slide. So if you go over all the slides for the lectures, and make sure that you understand what is being said on all of them, you should be in good shape for the final exam.

The labs just provide numerical and hands on practice for this same thing -- no additional or new concepts are introduced in the labs, just asking the student to do the same computations which have already been carried out in the lecture slides.

FInal Exam

Final Exam will be in-class written exam. It will cover the whole course. The pattern will be similar to the questions that have been asked in the online quizzes. For the lectures for which there was no online quiz, the pattern will be similar to the types of questions worked out in the labs.

The Exam is scheduled for Monday, June 30th, 9:30am to 12:30  on what is likely to be the first day of Ramazan. Study hard and do well. 

Quiz Uploaded

Contrary to my plans, I could not upload quiz to quizstar on Friday. NOW I have uploaded a quiz on Lecture 12 -- Basically on Binomial Probabilities, just a little while ago. This quiz will be open for 48 hours, until Wednesday. Please take this quiz within time period allotted