Statistics for Business and Economics

Target Audience

Undergraduate majors in business and economics as well as MBA students.

Prerequisites

• Economics
  • A first course in either micro or macro economics

• Mathematics
  • Finite mathematics
  • Basic calculus

Course Features

• Based on "Headline" situations
  • timely current events
  • short focused case studies
• Incorporates Microsoft Excel laboratories

Example Topics

as seen in Examples of Excel Use and test questions on the course web page

• The weight of pennies
• Duration of economic expansions
• Bank robberies
• Expected lottery winnings
• Multiple choice tests
• Required time for exams
• Selling loaves of bread
• Thickness of sheet metal
• Price of unleaded gas
• Absenteeism
• Death and speed limits
• Pricing of housing
• Wine consumption
• Election fraud

Published Material About This Course

• Textbook: Statistics for Business and Economics Using Microsoft Excel 97
  by William E. Becker, S.R.B Publishing, 1997.

• Article: "Engaging Students in Quantitative Analysis with Short Case Examples from the Academic and Popular Press", in American Economic Review, May 1998, pp. 480-486.

• Chapter 12 in Teaching Economics to Undergraduates: Alternatives to Chalk and Talk,
  edited by William E. Becker and Michael Watts, Edward Elgar Ltd., forthcoming, 1998.

Statistics for Business and Economics web page

For Further Information, contact ...

• William E. Becker, Indiana University Bloomington Department of Economics
  e-mail beckerw@indiana.edu