This short book introduces the main ideas of statistical inference in a way that is both user friendly and mathematically sound. Particular emphasis is placed on the common foundation of many models used in practice. In addition, the book focuses on the formulation of appropriate statistical models to study problems in business, economics, and the social sciences, as well as on how to interpret the results from statistical analyses. The book will be useful to students who are interested in rigorous applications of statistics to problems in business, economics and the social sciences, as well as students who have studied statistics in the past, but need a more solid grounding in statistical techniques to further their careers. Jacco Thijssen is professor of finance at the University of York, UK. He holds a PhD in mathematical economics from Tilburg University, Netherlands. His main research interests are in applications of optimal stopping theory, stochastic calculus, and game theory to problems in economics and finance. Professor Thijssen has earned several awards for his statistics teaching.

The purpose of this book is to introduce novice researchers to the tools of meta-analysis and meta-regression analysis and to summarize the state of the art for existing practitioners. Meta-regression analysis addresses the rising "Tower of Babel" that current economics and business research has become. Meta-analysis is the statistical analysis of previously published, or reported, research findings on a given hypothesis, empirical effect, phenomenon, or policy intervention. It is a systematic review of all the relevant scientific knowledge on a specific subject and is an essential part of the evidence-based practice movement in medicine, education and the social sciences. However, research in economics and business is often fundamentally different from what is found in the sciences and thereby requires different methods for its synthesis-meta-regression analysis. This book develops, summarizes, and applies these meta-analytic methods.

This book brings together cutting edge contributions in the fields of international economics, micro theory, welfare economics and econometrics, with contributions from Donald R. Davis, Avinash K. Dixit, Tadashi Inoue, Ronald W. Jones, Dale W. Jorgenson, K. Rao Kadiyala, Murray C. Kemp, Kenneth M. Kletzer, Anne O. Krueger, Mukul Majumdar, Daniel McFadden, Lionel McKenzie, James R. Melvin, James C. Moore, Takashi Negishi, Yoshihiko Otani, Raymond Riezman, Paul A. Samuelson, Joaquim Silvestre and Marie Thursby.

This book presents modern developments in time series econometrics that are applied to macroeconomic and financial time series, bridging the gap between methods and realistic applications. It presents the most important approaches to the analysis of time series, which may be stationary or nonstationary. Modelling and forecasting univariate time series is the starting point. For multiple stationary time series, Granger causality tests and vector autogressive models are presented. As the modelling of nonstationary uni- or multivariate time series is most important for real applied work, unit root and cointegration analysis as well as vector error correction models are a central topic. Tools for analysing nonstationary data are then transferred to the panel framework. Modelling the (multivariate) volatility of financial time series with autogressive conditional heteroskedastic models is also treated.

This volume focuses on econometric models that confront estimation and inference issues occurring when sample data exhibit spatial or spatiotemporal dependence. This can arise when decisions or transactions of economic agents are related to the behaviour of nearby agents. Dependence of one observation on neighbouring observations violates the typical assumption of independence made in regression analysis. Contributions to this volume by leading experts in the field of spatial econometrics provide details regarding estimation and inference based on a variety of econometric methods including, maximum likelihood, Bayesian and hierarchical Bayes, instrumental variables, generalized method of moments, maximum entropy, non-parametric and spatiotemporal. An overview of spatial econometric models and methods is provided that places contributions to this volume in the context of existing literature. New methods for estimation and inference are introduced in this volume and Monte Carlo comparisons of existing methods are described. In addition to topics involving estimation and inference, approaches to model comparison and selection are set forth along with new tests for spatial dependence and functional form. These methods are applied to a variety of economic problems including: hedonic real estate pricing, agricultural harvests and disaster payments, voting behaviour, identification of edge cities, and regional labour markets. The volume is supported by a web site containing data sets and software to implement many of the methods described by contributors to this volume.

The aim of this book is an applied and unified introduction into parametric, non- and semiparametric regression that closes the gap between theory and application. The most important models and methods in regression are presented on a solid formal basis, and their appropriate application is shown through many real data examples and case studies. Availability of (user-friendly) software has been a major criterion for the methods selected and presented. Thus, the book primarily targets an audience that includes students, teachers and practitioners in social, economic, and life sciences, as well as students and teachers in statistics programs, and mathematicians and computer scientists with interests in statistical modeling and data analysis. It is written on an intermediate mathematical level and assumes only knowledge of basic probability, calculus, and statistics. The most important definitions and statements are concisely summarized in boxes. Two appendices describe required matrix algebra, as well as elements of probability calculus and statistical inference.

This book is designed to introduce graduate students and researchers to the primary methods useful for approximating integrals. The emphasis is on those methods that have been found to be of practical use, and although the focus is on approximating higher-dimensional integrals the lower-dimensional case is also covered. This book covers all the most useful approximation techniques so far discovered; the first time that all such techniques have been included in a single book and at a level accessible for students. In particular, it includes a complete development of the material needed to construct the highly popular Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods.

Over the course of his professional life, John Maynard Keynes altered his views from free trade in the classical tradition to restricted trade. At the end of his career, his position on the issue was still not categorically resolved even though the evidence seems to suggest that he moved closer to a system of managed trade. In that model, nations would not leave their foreign trade interests open to the vagaries of the free market, but rather exercise some degree of control over them just as they would their domestic economies. Nevertheless, there is no general agreement among economists as to whether Keynes ended his career in the camp of the free traders or aligned himself with the protectionists. John Maynard Keynes: Free Trader or Protectionist? seeks an answer to this question by analyzing Keynes' own views on this issue, as stated in his major publications, letters, speeches, testimony before government bodies, newspaper articles, participation in conferences, and other sources. Through this detailed review of what Keynes himself had to say on the issue as opposed to what others have alleged, this book strives to make a significant contribution to the resolution of this issue.

Valuable software, realistic examples, clear writing, and fascinating topics help you master key spreadsheet and business analytics skills with SPREADSHEET MODELING AND DECISION ANALYSIS, 8E. You'll find everything you need to become proficient in today's most widely used business analytics techniques using Microsoft (R) Office Excel (R) 2016. Author Cliff Ragsdale -- respected innovator in business analytics -- guides you through the skills you need, using the latest Excel (R) for Windows. You gain the confidence to apply what you learn to real business situations with step-by-step instructions and annotated screen images that make examples easy to follow. The World of Management Science sections further demonstrates how each topic applies to a real company. Each new edition includes extended trial licenses for Analytic Solver Platform and XLMiner with powerful simulation and optimization tools for descriptive and prescriptive analytics and a full suite of tools for data mining in Excel.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the fruitful achievement of China's Quantitative Economics during the past 30 years, assembling pioneering contributions of prominent quantitative economists in China. It chronicles significant events and the detailed evolution of Quantitative Economics in China. This well-organized book is a must-have for scholars to get a full picture of the status quo, and identify possible research gaps.

What happens to risk as the economic horizon goes to zero and risk is seen as an exposure to a change in state that may occur instantaneously at any time? All activities that have been undertaken statically at a fixed finite horizon can now be reconsidered dynamically at a zero time horizon, with arrival rates at the core of the modeling. This book, aimed at practitioners and researchers in financial risk, delivers the theoretical framework and various applications of the newly established dynamic conic finance theory. The result is a nonlinear non-Gaussian valuation framework for risk management in finance. Risk-free assets disappear and low risk portfolios must pay for their risk reduction with negative expected returns. Hedges may be constructed to enhance value by exploiting risk interactions. Dynamic trading mechanisms are synthesized by machine learning algorithms. Optimal exposures are designed for option positioning simultaneously across all strikes and maturities.

This book offers a fresh perspective on the early history of macroeconomics, by examining the macro-dynamic models developed from the late 1920s to the late 1940s, and their treatment of economic instability. It first explores the differences and similarities between the early mathematical business cycle models developed by Ragnar Frisch, Michal Kalecki, Jan Tinbergen and others, which were presented at meetings of the Econometric Society and discussed in private correspondence. By doing so, it demonstrates the diversity of models representing economic phenomena and especially economic crises and instability. Jan Tinbergen emerged as one of the most original and pivotal economists of this period, before becoming a leader of the macro-econometric movement, a role for which he is better known. His emphasis on economic policy was later mirrored in the United States in Paul Samuelson's early work on business cycles analysis, which, drawing on Alvin Hansen, aimed at interpreting the 1937-1938 recession. The authors then show that the subsequent shift in Samuelson's approach, from the study of business cycle trajectories to the comparison of equilibrium points, provided a response to the econometricians' critique of early Keynesian models. In the early 1940s, Samuelson was able to link together the tools that had been developed by the econometricians and the economic content that was at the heart of the so-called Keynesian revolution. The problem then shifted from business cycle trajectories to the disequilibrium between economic aggregates, and the issues raised by the global stability of full employment equilibrium. This was addressed by Oskar Lange, who presented an analysis of market coordination failures, and Lawrence Klein, Samuelson's first PhD student, who pursued empirical work in this direction. The book highlights the various visions and approaches that were embedded in these macro-dynamic models, and that their originality is of interest to today's model builders as well as to students and anyone interested in how new economic ideas come to be developed.

The past ten years for the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region countries have registered an extreme deterioration in at least one measure of social and economic welfare: earnings inequality, unemployment, and poverty. The combination of slow economic growth, population explosion, and decline in labor productivity led to the reversal of the economic gains achieved during the economic boom in the 1970s. In contrast to that period, growth per capita (GDP) in 1980-1991 for Arab countries was -0.2%. Several indicators point to the extent of the problems faced today by the region's countries. Although the percentage of poverty declined for the majority of the regions in the world in 1985-1990, it has increased in the MENA region.

The purpose of this volume is to address the conditions of earnings inequality, unemployment, and poverty in the MENA region and the problems associated with these factors; to determine the state and magnitude of these problems through various country studies; and to provide solutions to alleviate the negative conditions facing developing economies, with special emphasis on the MENA countries.

The state-space approach provides a formal framework where any result or procedure developed for a basic model can be seamlessly applied to a standard formulation written in state-space form. Moreover, it can accommodate with a reasonable effort nonstandard situations, such as observation errors, aggregation constraints, or missing in-sample values. Exploring the advantages of this approach, State-Space Methods for Time Series Analysis: Theory, Applications and Software presents many computational procedures that can be applied to a previously specified linear model in state-space form. After discussing the formulation of the state-space model, the book illustrates the flexibility of the state-space representation and covers the main state estimation algorithms: filtering and smoothing. It then shows how to compute the Gaussian likelihood for unknown coefficients in the state-space matrices of a given model before introducing subspace methods and their application. It also discusses signal extraction, describes two algorithms to obtain the VARMAX matrices corresponding to any linear state-space model, and addresses several issues relating to the aggregation and disaggregation of time series. The book concludes with a cross-sectional extension to the classical state-space formulation in order to accommodate longitudinal or panel data. Missing data is a common occurrence here, and the book explains imputation procedures necessary to treat missingness in both exogenous and endogenous variables. Web Resource The authors' E4 MATLAB (R) toolbox offers all the computational procedures, administrative and analytical functions, and related materials for time series analysis. This flexible, powerful, and free software tool enables readers to replicate the practical examples in the text and apply the procedures to their own work.

Ranking of Multivariate Populations: A Permutation Approach with Applications presents a novel permutation-based nonparametric approach for ranking several multivariate populations. Using data collected from both experimental and observation studies, it covers some of the most useful designs widely applied in research and industry investigations, such as multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and multivariate randomized complete block (MRCB) designs. The first section of the book introduces the topic of ranking multivariate populations by presenting the main theoretical ideas and an in-depth literature review. The second section discusses a large number of real case studies from four specific research areas: new product development in industry, perceived quality of the indoor environment, customer satisfaction, and cytological and histological analysis by image processing. A web-based nonparametric combination global ranking software is also described. Designed for practitioners and postgraduate students in statistics and the applied sciences, this application-oriented book offers a practical guide to the reliable global ranking of multivariate items, such as products, processes, and services, in terms of the performance of all investigated products/prototypes.

This new book will be welcomed by econometricians and students of econometrics everywhere. Introducing discrete time modelling techniques and bridging the gap between economics and econometric literature, this ambitious book is sure to be an invaluable resource for all those to whom the terms unit roots, cointegration and error correction forms, chaos theory and random walks are recognisable if not yet fully understood.

Prepares readers to analyze data and interpret statistical results using the increasingly popular R more quickly than other texts through LessR extensions which remove the need to program. By introducing R through less R, readers learn how to organize data for analysis, read the data into R, and produce output without performing numerous functions and programming first. Readers can select the necessary procedure and change the relevant variables without programming. Quick Starts introduce readers to the concepts and commands reviewed in the chapters. Margin notes define, illustrate, and cross-reference the key concepts. When readers encounter a term previously discussed, the margin notes identify the page number to the initial introduction. Scenarios highlight the use of a specific analysis followed by the corresponding R/lessR input and an interpretation of the resulting output. Numerous examples of output from psychology, business, education, and other social sciences demonstrate how to interpret results and worked problems help readers test their understanding. www.lessRstats.com website features the lessR program, the book's 2 data sets referenced in standard text and SPSS formats so readers can practice using R/lessR by working through the text examples and worked problems, PDF slides for each chapter, solutions to the book's worked problems, links to R/lessR videos to help readers better understand the program, and more. New to this edition: o upgraded functionality and data visualizations of the lessR package, which is now aesthetically equal to the ggplot 2 R standard o new features to replace and extend previous content, such as aggregating data with pivot tables with a simple lessR function call.

This book provides an economic and econometric analysis of real estate investment and real estate market behaviour. Peijie Wang examines fluctuations in the real estate business to reveal the mechanisms governing the interactions between the industry and other sectors of the economy.

Introduction to Financial Mathematics: Option Valuation, Second Edition is a well-rounded primer to the mathematics and models used in the valuation of financial derivatives. The book consists of fifteen chapters, the first ten of which develop option valuation techniques in discrete time, the last five describing the theory in continuous time. The first half of the textbook develops basic finance and probability. The author then treats the binomial model as the primary example of discrete-time option valuation. The final part of the textbook examines the Black-Scholes model. The book is written to provide a straightforward account of the principles of option pricing and examines these principles in detail using standard discrete and stochastic calculus models. Additionally, the second edition has new exercises and examples, and includes many tables and graphs generated by over 30 MS Excel VBA modules available on the author's webpage https://home.gwu.edu/~hdj/.

Although interest in spatial regression models has surged in recent years, a comprehensive, up-to-date text on these approaches does not exist. Filling this void, Introduction to Spatial Econometrics presents a variety of regression methods used to analyze spatial data samples that violate the traditional assumption of independence between observations. It explores a wide range of alternative topics, including maximum likelihood and Bayesian estimation, various types of spatial regression specifications, and applied modeling situations involving different circumstances. Leaders in this field, the authors clarify the often-mystifying phenomenon of simultaneous spatial dependence. By presenting new methods, they help with the interpretation of spatial regression models, especially ones that include spatial lags of the dependent variable. The authors also examine the relationship between spatiotemporal processes and long-run equilibrium states that are characterized by simultaneous spatial dependence. MATLAB (R) toolboxes useful for spatial econometric estimation are available on the authors' websites. This work covers spatial econometric modeling as well as numerous applied illustrations of the methods. It encompasses many recent advances in spatial econometric models-including some previously unpublished results.

Model a Wide Range of Count Time Series Handbook of Discrete-Valued Time Series presents state-of-the-art methods for modeling time series of counts and incorporates frequentist and Bayesian approaches for discrete-valued spatio-temporal data and multivariate data. While the book focuses on time series of counts, some of the techniques discussed can be applied to other types of discrete-valued time series, such as binary-valued or categorical time series. Explore a Balanced Treatment of Frequentist and Bayesian Perspectives Accessible to graduate-level students who have taken an elementary class in statistical time series analysis, the book begins with the history and current methods for modeling and analyzing univariate count series. It next discusses diagnostics and applications before proceeding to binary and categorical time series. The book then provides a guide to modern methods for discrete-valued spatio-temporal data, illustrating how far modern applications have evolved from their roots. The book ends with a focus on multivariate and long-memory count series. Get Guidance from Masters in the Field Written by a cohesive group of distinguished contributors, this handbook provides a unified account of the diverse techniques available for observation- and parameter-driven models. It covers likelihood and approximate likelihood methods, estimating equations, simulation methods, and a Bayesian approach for model fitting.

Offering a unique balance between applications and calculations, Monte Carlo Methods and Models in Finance and Insurance incorporates the application background of finance and insurance with the theory and applications of Monte Carlo methods. It presents recent methods and algorithms, including the multilevel Monte Carlo method, the statistical Romberg method, and the Heath-Platen estimator, as well as recent financial and actuarial models, such as the Cheyette and dynamic mortality models. The authors separately discuss Monte Carlo techniques, stochastic process basics, and the theoretical background and intuition behind financial and actuarial mathematics, before bringing the topics together to apply the Monte Carlo methods to areas of finance and insurance. This allows for the easy identification of standard Monte Carlo tools and for a detailed focus on the main principles of financial and insurance mathematics. The book describes high-level Monte Carlo methods for standard simulation and the simulation of stochastic processes with continuous and discontinuous paths. It also covers a wide selection of popular models in finance and insurance, from Black-Scholes to stochastic volatility to interest rate to dynamic mortality. Through its many numerical and graphical illustrations and simple, insightful examples, this book provides a deep understanding of the scope of Monte Carlo methods and their use in various financial situations. The intuitive presentation encourages readers to implement and further develop the simulation methods.

In order to make informed decisions, there are three important elements: intuition, trust, and analytics. Intuition is based on experiential learning and recent research has shown that those who rely on their "gut feelings" may do better than those who don't. Analytics, however, are important in a data-driven environment to also inform decision making. The third element, trust, is critical for knowledge sharing to take place. These three elements-intuition, analytics, and trust-make a perfect combination for decision making. This book gathers leading researchers who explore the role of these three elements in the process of decision-making.

There is no shortage of incentives to study and reduce poverty in our societies. Poverty is studied in economics and political sciences, and population surveys are an important source of information about it. The design and analysis of such surveys is principally a statistical subject matter and the computer is essential for their data compilation and processing. Focusing on The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), a program of annual national surveys which collect data related to poverty and social exclusion, Statistical Studies of Income, Poverty and Inequality in Europe: Computing and Graphics in R presents a set of statistical analyses pertinent to the general goals of EU-SILC. The contents of the volume are biased toward computing and statistics, with reduced attention to economics, political and other social sciences. The emphasis is on methods and procedures as opposed to results, because the data from annual surveys made available since publication and in the near future will degrade the novelty of the data used and the results derived in this volume. The aim of this volume is not to propose specific methods of analysis, but to open up the analytical agenda and address the aspects of the key definitions in the subject of poverty assessment that entail nontrivial elements of arbitrariness. The presented methods do not exhaust the range of analyses suitable for EU-SILC, but will stimulate the search for new methods and adaptation of established methods that cater to the identified purposes.

This textbook concisely covers math knowledge and tools useful for business and economics studies, including matrix analysis, basic math concepts, general optimization, dynamic optimization, and ordinary differential equations. Basic math tools, particularly optimization tools, are essential for students in a business school, especially for students in economics, accounting, finance, management, and marketing. It is a standard practice nowadays that a graduate program in a business school requires a short and intense course in math just before or immediately after the students enter the program. Math in Economics aims to be the main textbook for such a crash course.The 1st edition was published by People's University Publisher, China. This new edition contains an added chapter on Probability Theory along with changes and improvements throughout.