THE VIETNAM – NETHERLANDS PROGRAMME

FOR M.A. IN DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS

COURSE OUTLINE

STATISTICS FOR BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

2022

Instructors

Dr. Huynh Thi Thu Thuy

htt.thuy@ueh.edu.vn

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is for Economics students. It aims to be user friendly, with a
minimum of mathematics and a maximum of explanation. The objective of this
course is to help the participants describe the data in both graphical and
numerical. This course also emphasis on data classification, summarisation,
display and analysis in order to aid understanding. We illustrate that any decision
making process should be supported by some quantitative measures produced
by the analysis of collected data.

EXPECTED LEARNING OUTCOMES

Having completed the course, student you should be able to:

 understand the use of most simple statistical techniques used in the world
of business;
 understand graphical presentation of data;
 present statistical data in graphical form;
 summarise and analyse statistical data;
  interpret your analysis for others;
 identify relationships between variables;
 infer population statistics from sample analysis;
 use some basic forecasting techniques;
 use a statistical software package (SPSS or Excel).

REQUIRED READINGS
Textbook:
1. Anderson D et al (2017), Statistics for Business & Economics, Cengage Learning
2. Sonia Taylor (2018), Business Statistics For non-mathematicians a companion
website at: https://www.macmillanihe.com/companion/Taylor-Business-
Statistics/student-zone/
3. Aczel−Sounderpandian (2008), Complete Business Statistics, McGraw−Hill.

Software
There are a lot of statistics package. The student will be introduced SPSS &
Excel. There are many online instructions such as following:

SPSS Tutorial (https://www.spss-tutorials.com/basics/)

Excel: Analysis Toolpak https://www.excel-easy.com/data-analysis/analysis-
toolpak.html

Lecture notes and case studies will be also provided.

TEACHING AND LEARNING METHODS
At least 80% class attendance is required. During the lectures, the instructor
introduces the key issues for each topic.
The students’ preparation for each class:
- Read the textbook [1] and related lecture notes.
- Do the assignments
- Practice software with provided data file
Assignments & Projects
- 5 individual assignments
- 1 group project (5 students per group)

COURSE EVALUATION
This is a 3-credits course with 45 class hours. Course evaluation is based on a
combination of assignments, Group project and final test as following
- 5 individual assignments: 30%
- 1 group project: 20%
- final exam: 50%

TOPICS
There are 10 topics
Topic 1: Introduction and descriptive statistics
[textbook 1- Ch 2] & lecture notes
Case study 1
- Using statistics
- Review: percentiles, quartiles, measures of central tendency, measures of
variability.
- Graphical representation
- Numerical summary of data

Topic 2: Probability, Contingency tables

[textbook 1 – Ch 4] & lecture notes
- Some basic Definitions
- Basic Rules for Probability
- Conditional Probability
- Independence of Events
- Combinatorial Concepts
- Joint Probability Table
- Using the Computer

Topic 3: Normal distribution

[textbook 1 – Ch 6] & lecture notes
- Properties of the Normal Distribution
- The Standard Normal Distribution
- The Transformation of Normal Random Variables
- The Inverse Transformation
- The Normal Approximation of Binomial Distributions
Topic 4. Confidence intervals
[textbook 1 – Ch 8] & lecture notes
- Confidence Interval for the Population Mean When the Population
Standard Deviation is Known
- Confidence Intervals for m When s is Unknown - The t Distribution
- Large-Sample Confidence Intervals for the Population Proportion p
- Confidence Intervals for the Population Variance
- Sample Size Determination

Topic 5. Hypothesis testing

[textbook 1- Ch9,Ch10,Ch11] & lecture notes
- The Concept of Hypothesis Testing
- Computing the p-value
- The Hypothesis Test
Topic 6. Inference about population means, population proportions
[textbook 1- Ch10,Ch11] & lecture notes
- Inference about population means,
- Inference about population proportions
Topic 7. Comparing Multiple proportions, Test of independence and Goodness
[textbook 1- Ch12] & lecture notes
- Multiple proportions
- Test of independence and Goodness

Topic 8. Experimental design and Analysis of variance

[textbook 1- Ch13] & lecture notes
- The Hypothesis Test of Analysis of Variance
- The Theory and Computations of ANOVA
- The ANOVA Table and Examples
- Further Analysis
- Models, Factors, and Designs
- Two-Way Analysis of Variance
- Blocking Designs
Topic 9. Nonparametric methods
[textbook 1- Ch18]
- The Sign Test
- The Runs Test - A Test for Randomness
- The Mann-Whitney U Test
- The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test
- The Kruskal-Wallis Test - A Nonparametric Alternative to One-Way ANOVA

Topic 10. Sampling methods

[textbook 3- Ch16]
- Nonprobability Sampling and Bias
- Stratified Random Sampling
- Cluster Sampling
- Systematic Sampling