Modern economies are full of uncertainties and risk. Economics studies resource allocations in an uncertain market environment. As a generally applicable quantitative analytic tool for uncertain events, probability and statistics have been playing an important role in economic research. Econometrics is statistical analysis of economic and financial data. In the past four decades or so, economics has witnessed a so-called 'empirical revolution' in its research paradigm, and as the main methodology in empirical studies in economics, econometrics has been playing an important role. It has become an indispensable part of training in modern economics, business and management.This book develops a coherent set of econometric theory, methods and tools for economic models. It is written as a textbook for graduate students in economics, business, management, statistics, applied mathematics, and related fields. It can also be used as a reference book on econometric theory by scholars who may be interested in both theoretical and applied econometrics.

This is the first volume in a two-part publication which offers a comprehensive view of the topic. Volume I: Trade by Country, compiled in May 2014, presents detailed data of 175 countries (or areas) with data on imports and exports by commodity and trading partner provided for approximateky 90 countries (or areas), representing more than 70% of world trade in 2014. Volume II: Trade by Commodity, expected to be released at the end of the year, contains the detailed tables showing international trade for 258 commodities and eleven world trade tables covering trade values and indices up to the year 2014.

This year's edition of International Debt Statistics, successor to Global Development Finance and World Debt Tables, and the fourth in the series, is designed to respond to user demand for timely, comprehensive data on trends in external debt in low- and middle-income countries. It also provides summary information on the external debt of high-income countries and public (domestic and external) debt for a select group of countries. The World Bank's Debtor Reporting System (DRS), from which the aggregate and country tables presented in this report are drawn, wasestablished in 1951. World Debt Tables, the first publication that included DRS external debt data, appeared in 1973 and gained increased attention during the debt crisis of the 1980s. Since then, the publication and data have undergone numerous revisions and iterations to address the challenges and demands posed by the global economic conditions. Presentation and access to data have been refined to improve the user experience. The printed edition of International Debt Statistics 2016 now provides a summary overview and a select set of indicators, while an expanded dataset is available online (datatopics.worldbank.org / debt/ids).

Bachelor Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Economics - Statistics and Methods, grade: none, - (University for Development Studies, Tamale), language: English, abstract: The study is an attempt to build a univariate Time Series Model to forecast monthly petroleum prices for 2010/2011, from January 1990 to September 2010, since national petroleum agency (NPA) is failing to plan for fluctuation of petroleum prices. The data was source from the website of Bank of Ghana. The study employs Box-Jenkins methodology of building Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) model to achieve various objectives. Different selected models were tested by Residual plots of Autocorrelation and Partial Autocorrelation and Ljung Box Q statistic to ensure adequacy of results. The results reveal that demand and supply, crudel oil prices, gasoline, natural disasters and government regulations are some of factors that can influence fuel prices and ARIMA(1,1,5)x(1,0,1)11 is the best model for forecast. The future values expose that during the months to come; petroleum prices are going to experience an insignificant increase. In light of the forecast, I know Ghana will ascertain a healthy state of economy.

Diploma Thesis from the year 2012 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Economic Geography, grade: 1,1, University of Marburg, language: English, abstract: Context: China's rapid economic development during the last decades and recent signs of a far reaching structural shift from an industrialized export oriented economy to an economy driven by innovation, domestic consumption and services is reflected by German investment patterns inside mainland China. While the bulk of German investments were traditionally focused on industrial production, a diverse set of market drivers led to an increased investment of German Knowledge-Intensive Business Services (KIBS) as well. As a sector that has been rarely researched before, German KIBS in China are an integral part of the German business community, shaping their environment in various ways. Content: This thesis aims to fill a research gap by providing a baseline study and qualitative survey on the presence, business activity and structure of German KIBS in China, as well as the function of German KIBS in Beijing as "knowledge intermediaries." Theoretical considerations for this work are based on recent KIBS-research, outlining KIBS-functions and knowledge processing mechanisms, interaction patterns with partners and the relevance proximity. Furthermore, legal and economic framework conditions for foreign service companies in China are outlined, introducing Chinese government policies, regulations and current problems which affect the work of foreign companies in China. The subsequent empirical analysis consists of two parts: A qualitative baseline study with a focus on the overall situation of German KIBS in the context of Chinese service sector development and an empirical micro analysis based on interviews, which aims to provide more detailed insights on German KIBS operations with respect to: -Market entry -China specific regulations and challenges -External network relationships -Innovation, mediatio

Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Economic Geography, grade: 6 (Schweiz), University of Zurich (Geographisches Institut), language: English, abstract: This study supports, that culture influences the relationship between organizational change and human failure. An analysis of global large loss events shows, that more than half of all losses can be backtracked to a human failure. A closer look at the organizational background of these human failure losses indicates additionally, that two thirds of them occurred after or during organizational changes of the employer. Because human performance is also dependent on cultural factors, this thesis investigates whether the established relationship between organizational changes and human failure features a cultural pattern of occurrence as well. In order to render an acceptable degree of comparison, the loss events are aligned on Hofstede's cultural dimensions, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, individualism, masculinity and long-term orientation. This study concludes, that a society's uncertainty avoidance and its individualism are related to the occurrence of large human failure loss events. While a society's high uncertainty avoidance is negatively correlated, a society's high individualism is positively correlated with human failures. It is further proposed, that a large power distance often prevents a workforce from committing human failures when their organization is changing. Trust in the vertical hierarchy gives them security. On the other side, high individualism aggravates human failures during organizational changes. The employees know that they are on their own, and that they have nobody to rely upon in insecure times.

Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Economic Geography, grade: 1,3, University of Cologne (Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeographisches Institut), course: The Economic Geography of the European Union, language: English, abstract: In our globalized world trade fairs are important events for firms to communicate and/or sell their products and services to a global audience. But besides this original aim of trade fairs, scientists go further and focus on the effects, which these temporary and spatial accumulations of professionals from the same or equal industries might have. According to that, a particular focus lies on inter-organizational learning processes, like they can be found in clusters. Thus, the central question of this report derives, whether in the European context trade fairs can be seen as temporary clusters, which would imply that trade fairs became central nodes connecting global economy. This issue is important, since both participating in trade fairs and searching for adequate interaction partners are costly and time intensive processes. If trade fairs provided equal benefits as temporary clusters, organizing and participating entities would expend more effort on planning and conducting the time before, during and after the trade fair. Apparently, benefiting from new knowledge pools is at least an important aspect in times of increasing innovation velocity. Finding a clear answer for the problem is not trivial, since the majority of available literature focuses on trade fairs in the context of a communication instrument in firm's marketing mix. Furthermore there are difficulties to maintain a particular focus on Europe, since globalized world economy meets on international flagship trade fairs. Another aspect is the difficulty of measuring qualitative and quantifiable effects of spatial proximity in clusters, which additionally could be implemented to compare different forms of temporary clusters.

Three kinds of people ought to read this book. Firstly there are those who use statistics in their work: accountants, scientists, advertisers, marketers, politicians and journalists. If you are in one of these categories I would like to help you to maintain, or aspire to, a reasonable standard of honesty and integrity, so that people can trust what you say, and so that you do not even inadvertently mislead yourself as well as others. Secondly there are cynics who think statistics can never be trusted and are just tools used by liars. I want to show that they can be used properly, and also that with a little thought, we can all learn to spot the false or exaggerated claims, the non-sequitors, and the unsubstantiated assumptions. Then we will be able to see the truth when it appears. Thirdly, there are the huge number of ordinary people who get totally confused and sometimes, sadly, misled, by statistics. I want to help you make sense of what you read or hear, and be able to be confident in sorting the facts from the hype. It is for this third group that this book is really written. If the other two groups benefit, I will be glad, but if you are in this group, please read on. I hope you will enjoy it, but above all I hope it will empower you.

Gender inequalities in life expectancy provide a broader picture by combining two sets of statistical measures: the usual static gap at a given point in time and the innovative S-time-distance measure as the gap in time for a given level of the indicator.

Firstly, this offers an innovative approach for looking at disparities over many units and over time. The new S-time-distance measure, expressed in time units, is easy to understand by everybody and offers a novel way to compare situations in economics, politics, business, and statistics.

Secondly, while women expect to live longer than men for 99.5 percent of the world population, the empirical results show astonishing differences among countries in gender disparity in life expectancy around the globe.

Firstly, gender disparities in life expectancy analysed in Gaptimer Report No. 2 'How much longer live women than men around the globe?' uses the theoretical concept of time distance dimension of inequality. This provides two innovative generic statistical measures S-time-distance and S-time-step to complement (not replace) the existing mostly static measures of inequality in many fields. This is an additional dimension to assess the reality that disparities can be very persuasive and a long-standing phenomenon.

" 'As Sicherl (1973, 1993) proposes ... observed time distance is a dynamic measure of temporal disparity between the two series intuitively clear, readily measurable, and in transparent units. It is suggested that one should complement conventional measures with horizontal measures.'" (Granger and Jeon, 1997) C.W.J. Granger and Y. Jeon, University of California at San Diego

The time distance measure shows the reality with new eyes. The overall life expectancy the static difference between China and Sweden was less than 10 percent (which may appear to be small) while the S-time-distance was 51 years, (which gives a very different perception of the magnitude of the gap).

Potential users of this methodology and results are very many at various levels: international and national organizations, NGOs, experts, businesses, managers, educators, students, interest groups, media, and the general public.

Secondly, one of the main points in this study are astonishing differences between countries for gender inequality in life expectancy, which are confirmed by two methods: the respective world ranks and by very large time distances between the female and male trends of life expectancy. For example, Estonia occupied rank 51 the world for females and 110 for males. On the other extreme, e.g. the rank for Qatar was 65 for females and only 12 for males. For gender disparity in life expectancy S-time-distance for the world average, i.e. the horizontal time gap between trends of female and male life expectancy amounted to 20 years, 28 years for the EU27 and 35 years for the USA, showing a large and persistent gap in favour of women.

The time distance concept can influence the perception and decisions of people when they are assessing their relative position in their surroundings, in the society and across countries over time. For the EU27 average it is shown that the time delay for life expectancy of males behind females was large at about 27 years; the relationship is very persistent and it changes very slowly.

In the EU there are 10 countries with S-time-distance delay of male behind the female life expectancy more than 30 years, for five of them more than 50 years, i.e. more than half a century. The absolute difference in gender disparity in life expectancy for 269 EU27 NUTS2 regions ranged from 2.3 to 10.9 years of life, with a median value of 5.5 years; the same median value for 3118 US counties. More detailed regional results are prepared for the UK and Italy.

The majority of empirical research in economics ignores the potential benefits of nonparametric methods, while the majority of advances in nonparametric theory ignores the problems faced in applied econometrics. This book helps bridge this gap between applied economists and theoretical nonparametric econometricians. It discusses in depth, and in terms that someone with only one year of graduate econometrics can understand, basic to advanced nonparametric methods. The analysis starts with density estimation and motivates the procedures through methods that should be familiar to the reader. It then moves on to kernel regression, estimation with discrete data, and advanced methods such as estimation with panel data and instrumental variables models. The book pays close attention to the issues that arise with programming, computing speed, and application. In each chapter, the methods discussed are applied to actual data, paying attention to presentation of results and potential pitfalls.

C.R.M.E. is a workbook for anyone needing (or wanting) to do a research project that can stand the test of claiming scientific significance. The workbook leads the reader in a logical progression from the measurement of variables in the research design to the formulation of testable hypotheses.

I taught such a research class at the college level for twenty years and learned how few people know the meaning of significance. Even students who came into the class having taken statistics as a pre-requisite were "fuzzy" about the concepts of standard deviations, significance, and standard scores. I realized there were two reasons for this: learning out of context; that is, without seeing an application, and secondly, being overloaded with too much statistics, which led to mere confusion. Thus my approach was to include the most common types of statistical tests covering a wide spectrum of measurements and having them applied in a real research project. Once this much is learned, it is easier to branch out to more sophisticated measurements and testing.

This workbook was also used with adult students in the university's weekend program. These were students from various large corporations in the city who were finishing their undergraduate degrees. It was they who gave me the idea to share the workbook, as many of them were given research projects to do at their place of employment and gave me very positive feedback. I genuinely hope that you find it helpful as well.

Best wishes, Prof. M.

Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Economic Geography, grade: 1,0, University of Frankfurt (Main) (Institut fur Humangeographie), course: Mobilitat 2.0 - Soziale Veranderungen und Zukunft der Mobilitat, language: English, abstract: In an era of information and communication technologies, imaginative and virtual travel have not substituted physical travel but resulted in a network society of multiple mobilities. People are increasingly mobile for maintaining their professional and private social relationships in intermittent face-to-face meetings. So far, we do not know much about the interrelation between travel mobility and social network services (SNSs). With the example of Facebook as the dominating, undisputed SNS of 845 million monthly active users, I will argue how 'place'-focused features are put under the spotlight of Facebook users' activities and perceived character. As a platform combining various services, tools, and applications also of third parties, Facebook can influence its users' mobility habits and expectations of physical traveling. This brings with it important implications for research and practice, since foremostly young generations are concerned and will thus influence future developments.

In 2013, the World Bank Group adopted two new goals to guide its work: ending extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity. More specifically, the goals are to reduce extreme poverty in the world to less than 3 percent by 2030, and to foster income growth of the bottom 40 percent of the population in each country. While poverty reduction has been a mainstay of the World Bank s mission for decades, the Bank has now set a specific goal and timetable, and for the first time, the Bank has explicitly included a goal linked to ensuring that growth is shared by all. The discussion until now has centered primarily on articulating the new goals. This report, the latest in World Bank s Policy Research Report series, goes beyond that and lays out their conceptual underpinnings, discusses their relative strengths and weaknesses by contrasting them with alternative indicators, and proposes empirical approaches and requirements to track progress towards the goals. The report makes clear that the challenges posed by the World Bank Group s new stance extend not just to the pursuit of these goals but, indeed, to their very definition and empirical content. The report also argues that an improved data infrastructure, consisting of many elements including the collection of more and better survey data, is critical to ensure that progress towards these goals can be measured, and policies to help achieve them can be identified and prioritized."

Diploma Thesis from the year 2004 in the subject Economics - Statistics and Methods, grade: 1, Bielefeld University, language: English, abstract: Ziel der Arbeit ist es den seit langem wissenschaftlich diskutierten Zusammenhang zwischen Inflation und Arbeitslosigkeit, die Phillips-Kurve, mit Hilfe neuer statistischer Methoden zu untersuchen und seine verschiedenen Auspragungen bei den G7-Staaten miteinander zu vergleichen. Dabei werden zwei weitere Einflusse, Produktivitat und Inflationsklima, miteinbezogen. Der erste Teil fuhrt in die Diskussion der Phillips-Kurve ein. Im Folgenden werden die zur Analyse notwendigen Nichtparametrischen Verfahren vorgestellt und eingehend beschrieben. Die Analyse und der Vergleich der G7-Phillips-Kurven wird im vierten Kapitel durchgefuhrt. Im Anschluss daran folgt eine Zusammenfassung der Ergebnisse und ein Ausblick.

The publication contains detailed official national accounts data for over 200 countries or areas of the World for the years 2001 to 2012. It is a valuable source of information on the state and structure of economies worldwide. The data for each country or area are presented in separate chapters with uniform table headings and classifications as recommended in the System of National Accounts 1993 (1993 SNA). Each country chapter also contains a write-up on the methodology and data sources which are used to compile the national accounts. A summary of the SNA conceptual framework, classifications, definitions, is also included in the publication. It contains statistics on gross domestic product by expenditure at current and constant prices and the relations among product, income, saving and net lending; value added by kind of activity at current and constant prices, and output, gross value added and fixed assets by industry; classification of consumption expenditure of general government, households, and non-profit institutions serving households according to purpose; production account through the financial account for the institutional sectors; and cross classification of gross value added by industry and institutional sector.

In 1958 the Canadian Political Science Association established a committee to look into ways and means of improving statistical research in the social sciences in Canada. One of the ways in which the committee thought this could be done was by establishing an annual forum where papers could be presented and discussed. Eight papers given at the first Conference at Queen's University are contained in this volume. Diverse alike in subject and statistical method---as indeed a collection of papers reflecting the purpose of the founding committee is bound to be---the papers as printed incorporate the discussion that attended their presentation in 1960. The papers are: K.A.H. Buckley, "Historical Estimates of Internal Migration in Canada,"; Richard E. Du Wurs, Robert Batson, Margaret Daffron, "The 'Mass Society' and 'Community' Analyses of the Social Present"; P.J. Giffen, "Canadian Criminal Statistics"; E.J. Hanson, "The Post-war Rise of the Crude Petroleum Industry"; Gideon Rosenbluth, "Salaries of Engineers and Scientists, 1951"; David N. Solomon, Agnes M. Fergusson, "The Distribution and Functions of Canadian Engineers and Scientists"; K.W. Studnicki-Gizbert, "The Structure and Growth of the Canadian Air Transport Industry"; T.R. Vout, "The Canadian Manufacturing Industry, 1900-57."

Clarity and cutting-edge examples have made Statistics for Business and Economics the definitive textbook for students across the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa. This new edition builds on the text's well-respected foundations to deliver a clear, up-to-date and comprehensive revision. All the key concepts, combined with the latest technologies and applications, are introduced with hallmark precision, making this your complete introduction to business statistics.

Interest in the skew-normal and related families of distributions has grown enormously over recent years, as theory has advanced, challenges of data have grown, and computational tools have made substantial progress. This comprehensive treatment, blending theory and practice, will be the standard resource for statisticians and applied researchers. Assuming only basic knowledge of (non-measure-theoretic) probability and statistical inference, the book is accessible to the wide range of researchers who use statistical modelling techniques. Guiding readers through the main concepts and results, it covers both the probability and the statistics sides of the subject, in the univariate and multivariate settings. The theoretical development is complemented by numerous illustrations and applications to a range of fields including quantitative finance, medical statistics, environmental risk studies, and industrial and business efficiency. The author's freely available R package sn, available from CRAN, equips readers to put the methods into action with their own data.

Distribution analysis has advanced remarkably in recent years, and this is a valuable application of its principles to a Canadian context. The book provides an extensive survey of recent literature and a new source of income and wealth distribution data for Ontario, drawn from newly available microdata sets. It also presents an evaluation of the data as a basis for measuring inequality in the distribution of economic and well-being. The empirical results illustrate how incomes vary significantly with age according to labour market attachment and experience, educational attainment and occupation, transfer receipts, and investment benefits. Similarly, strong age effects on net worth account reflect life-cycle patterns in asset holdings and debts typically associated with family investment in housing and financial adjustments for retirement. Differences in family size and composition have a substantial effect on the structure of family economic well-being. The inequality effects of adjusting for accrued capital gains and net worth holdings can also be quite significant. It is found that the distributional effects of CPP net benefits are considerable, although they are not as equalizing as one may have expected because of marked cohort effects. The detailed findings suggest that the life-cycle framework is a very useful one for evaluating the distributional effects of certain government programs, particularly intertemporal ones, and they underline the need for a range of different types of policies to address low income problems. The study urges greater recognition of the inequality of treatment and opportunity among different groups of the population. It also points out that conventional income distribution figures are only very imperfect estimates of the state of inequality in the underlying distribution of economic well-being.