Instructor Insights

Instructor Insights pages are part of the OCW Educator initiative, which seeks to enhance the value of OCW for educators.

Course Overview

This page focuses on the course 14.381 Statistical Method in Economics as it was taught by Prof. Anna Mikusheva in Fall 2013.

Statistical Method in Economics is part of the Economics Department’s sequence on Statistics and Econometrics. It provides an introduction to probability and statistics as background for advanced econometrics and introduction to the linear regression model. 14.381 highlights illustrations from economics and the application of these concepts to economic problems.

Note: 14.381 is divided into two sections and is co-taught by Prof. Mikusheva and another instructor. The Fall 2013 version of 14.381 on OCW focuses on the first part of the course. See the 2006 offering of 14.381 to learn about the second part of the course.

Course Outcomes

Course Goals for Students

The main objective of this course is to develop the basic skills needed to do statistical analysis of data. The course aims to provide students with techniques and receipts for estimation, hypothesis testing and confidence set construction.

 

Curriculum Information

Prerequisites

18.02 Multivariable Calculus

Requirements Satisfied

  • H-Level graduate credit
  • Serves as a prerequisite for the econometrics and statistics core requirements for the Economics Ph.D.

Offered

Every fall semester

The Classroom

  • A photo taken from the back of a classroom that has five rows of seating and four blackboards.

    Room 1 of 2 Click for next classroom.

    Lecture

    Lectures were held in this classroom that has a capacity to seat 54 students.

  • A photograph of a classroom looking out over five rows of seats.

    Click for previous classroom. Room 2 of 2

    Recitation

    A photo of the room used for this course’s recitation sessions.

 

Assessment

The students' grades were based on the following activities:

The color used on the preceding chart which represents the percentage of the total grade contributed by attendance. 35% Midterm
The color used on the preceding chart which represents the percentage of the total grade contributed by class participation. 15% Problem sets. For each of 6 problem sets, students only needed to hand in one solution to the TA. The other problems in the sets were for the students own study.
The rest of the grade for the course was completed during the second half of the class (35% final exam, 15% problem sets).
 

Student Information

On average, 40 students take this course each time it is offered.

Breakdown by Year

All of the students were Ph.D. students.

Breakdown by Major

Almost all of the students are Economics Ph.D. students, though some Ph.D. students from the Sloan School of Management, political science, and engineering enroll.

 

How Student Time Was Spent

During an average week in the spring semester, students were expected to spend 14.5 hours on the course, roughly divided as follows:

Lecture

3 hours per week
  • Met 2 times per week for 1.5 hours per session; 13 sessions total.
  • The midterm exam was taken during one of the sessions.
 

Recitation

1.5 hours per week
  • Met one time per week for 1.5 hours.
  • Discussed topics covered in that week’s lecture and reviewed sample problems.
 

Out of Class

10 hours per week

The students had six problem sets to work on outside of class.

 

Semester Breakdown

WEEK M T W Th F
1 No classes throughout MIT. No classes throughout MIT. No session scheduled. Lecture session. Recitation session.
2 No session scheduled. Lecture session. No session scheduled. Lecture session. Recitation session.
3 No session scheduled. Lecture session; problem set duedate. No session scheduled. Lecture session. No classes throughout MIT.
4 No session scheduled. Lecture session; problem set duedate. No session scheduled. Lecture session. Recitation session.
5 No session scheduled. Lecture session; problem set duedate. No session scheduled. Lecture session. Recitation session.
6 No session scheduled. Lecture session; problem set duedate. No session scheduled. Lecture session. Recitation session.
7 No classes throughout MIT. No classes throughout MIT. No session scheduled. Lecture session; problem set duedate. Recitation session.
8 No session scheduled. Midterm exam scheduled; problem set due date. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
9 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
10 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
11 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
12 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
13 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
14 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
15 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
16 No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled. No session scheduled.
Displays the color and pattern used on the preceding table to indicate dates when classes are not held at MIT. No classes throughout MIT
Displays the color used on the preceding table to indicate dates when lecture sessions are held. Lecture session
Displays the color used on the preceding table to indicate dates when midterm exams are held. Midterm exam
Displays the color used on the preceding table to indicate dates when no class session is scheduled. No class session scheduled
Displays the color used on the preceding table to indicate dates when recitation sessions are held. Recitation session
Displays the symbol used on the preceding table to indicate dates when problem sets are due. Problem set due date