E-Book Overview
This text provides a unified treatment of modern econometric theory and practical econometric methods. The geometrical approach to least squares is emphasized, as is the method of moments, which is used to motivate a wide variety of estimators and tests. Simulation methods, including the bootstrap, are introduced early and used extensively. The book deals with a large number of modern topics. In addition to bootstrap and Monte Carlo tests, these include sandwich covariance matrixestimators, artificial regressions, estimating functions and the generalized method of moments, indirect inference, and kernel estimation. Every chapter incorporates numerous exercises, some theoretical, some empirical, and many involving simulation. Econometric Theory and Methods is designed for beginning graduate courses. The book is suitable for both one- and two-term courses at the Masters or Ph.D. level. It can also be used in a final-year undergraduate course for students with sufficient backgrounds in mathematics and statistics.
E-Book Content
Chapter 1
Regression Models 1.1 Introduction Regression models form the core of the discipline of econometrics. Although econometricians routinely estimate a wide variety of statistical models, using many different types of data, the vast majority of these are either regression models or close relatives of them. In this chapter, we introduce the concept of a regression model, discuss several varieties of them, and introduce the estimation method that is most commonly used with regression models, namely, least squares. This estimation method is derived by using the method of moments, which is a very general principle of estimation that has many applications in econometrics. The most elementary type of regression model is the simple linear regression model, which can be expressed by the following equation: yt = β1 + β2 Xt + ut .
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