Econometrics for dummies

[econgirl]

Hi econ people,

a friend of mine plans to pursue a PhD degree at a decent grad school (he will apply this year). He feels that he should brush up his rusty econometrics (a combination of a poor teacher and poor health in the crucial semesters).

While he has an aptitude for numbers, his econometrics really badly needs a few months of careful study. His particular problem is that anything he learns ends in his short-term memory. There is no long-run impact.

All textbooks I recommended him turned out to be hard-going. Does anyone know a textbook that takes an autodidact through the basics? All textbooks I know of adopt the ill-famed cookbook approach. The intuition and understanding are sacrificed for the sake of rigor. He would appreciate an equivalent of Simon+Blume in mathematics.

Thanks in advance.

P.S. Retaking the econometrics class - however logical this would be - is not an option because he is already working.

[Econ]

A book that covers the basics is Johnson and Dinnardo ''Econ something''. If he hasn't checked it yet, he should definitely give it a try

[reactor]

try this: http://www.urch.com/forums/showthrea...economics+math (Your Favorite Math / Econ Books And Websites!)

[vinnythepooh]

Johnston and Dinardo - brush up??? Econ, you scare me man!

Ok heres my recommendation:

Basics, with minimal linear algebra (*though tougher stuff is in appendices to chapters and the book*), but an extremely comprehensive undergraduate book - Basic Econometrics by Damodar Gujarati. It is very illustrative of the strong intuitive understanding you will need. I still use it even at MSc. to understand concepts that the math sometimes drowns out. An alternate that is slightly more mathematical is Maddala. Another (more LSE) book is Doughterty's Introduction to Econometrics.

When you're thorough with this, THEN use Johnston / Dinardo's Econometric Methods, or Fumio Hayashi's Econometrics.


If you really want a nice summation based OLD OLD OLD school book on Econometrics and the classical origins, Anna Koutsoyiannis's book is great... though it has not been updated since 1980... but OLS is still OLS - and she has a great pedantic style, though Linear Algebra is just totally ignored.

[TriEcon]

I learned on Introductory Econometrics by Arthur Goldberger. It's only about 200 pages and written in a conversational tone. Very easy to understand but it has some difficult homework questions.

Also for basic probability theory, the standard is A First Course in Probability by Sheldon Ross.

[jugowar]

I strongly recommend

"A guide to Econometrics" by Peter Kennedy and "Learning and Practicing Econometrics" by Griffitths, Hill and Judge

[Yevgor]

I agree with vinnythepooh- Gujarati's is excellent introductory book that gives mostly nontechnical intuitive understanding of Econometrics

[dvon]

Gujarati is excellent. I also recommend Griffitths, Hill and Judge "Learning and Practicing Econometrics". Nonetheless, I would recommend first to take a look to some basic Linear Algebra books. Even though you can get through Gujarati or G,H&J without it, it will definitely make his life a lot easier with other introductory books. Statistics (and econometrics) is so much easier if you have studied first linear algebra.

Maybe that has been his problem until now. I would recommend Grossman for a basic introduction to LA. There are other linear\matrix algebra books specifically written for statistics. He can also take a look at that.

[econgirl]

Thanks everyone. I will forward your recommendations.