Content and objectives
The subject matter of this course is the use of main statistical methods for political analysis. The course comprises a series of 4 lectures and 6 tutorials spread out over two weeks in October and November, in which main statistical concepts and econometric tools are explained:

• Describing distributions and making comparisons
• Tests of significance and measures of association
• Correlation vs Causality
• Linear Regression
• Instrumental Variables Regression
• Logistic Regression

In tutorials students practice the use of these techniques and experience pitfalls and problems in empirical research, by analysing data sets covering a wide range of topics. Students work on empirical exercises in our computer classroom, using STATA.

Literature

• Philip H. Pollock (2005), The Essentials of Political Analysis. Washington, DC: CQ Press. ISBN 1-56802-997-7

• Philip H. Pollock (2005), A STATA Companion to Political Analysis. Washington, DC: CQ Press. ISBN 0-87289-305-7

• Stock, James H. & Mark W. Watson (2003), Introduction to Econometrics, First Edition, Addison-Wesley, ISBN 0-321-44253-9.

• Verbeek, Marno (2008), A Guide to Modern Econometrics, 3^rd edition, Wiley, ISBN 978-0-470-51769-7. (High-quality exposition, up-to-date coverage, applications oriented)

• Kennedy, Peter (2003/2008), A Guide to Econometrics, 5^th /6 ^th  edition, Blackwell Publishing, ISBN 1-4051-1502-5. (Very readable, bird’s eye view, few formulas)

• Wooldridge, Jeffrey M. (2006), Introductory Econometrics: A Modern Approach, 3^rd edn., Thomson South-Western, ISBN 0-324-32348-4. (Comparable level to Stock & Watson)

• Greene, William H. (2003), Econometric Analysis, 5^th edn., Prentice Hall, ISBN 0-13-110849-2. (Intermediate level, extensive coverage, very widely known)

• Johnston Jack & John DiNardo (1997), Econometric Methods, 4^th edition., McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-115342-X. (Intermediate level, widely known)

• Deaton Angus (1997), The Analysis of Household Surveys: A Microeconometric Approach to Development Policy, Johns Hopkins, ISBN 0-8018-5254-4. (Graduate level; specialised, with applied focus)

• Wooldridge, Jeffrey M. (2002), Econometric Analysis of Cross Section and Panel Data, MIT Press, ISBN 0-262-23219-7. (Graduate level; specialised, with theoretical focus)