Integrating econometrics: A modern undergraduate economics capstone experience

Angrist and Pischke (2017) call for a pedagogical paradigm shift by pointing out that econometrics courses often do not align with modern empirical approaches employed by economists. This article's authors propose a modern capstone experience, designed to address these concerns by integrating econometrics into the traditional capstone approach. They couple a full econometrics course with a traditional capstone course by weaving a cohesive econometrics-heavy research paper through the two courses. They feel this approach addresses the lack of econometrics skills among economics majors while simultaneously making some necessary improvements to undergraduate econometrics content. They hope this article will be a valuable resource for programs changing course requirements or revamping their curriculum to better fit the increasing demand for data analysis skills in the job market.     

Using a Geographic Information System to Teach Economics

An honors program fits the current passion for active, in-depth learning and “capstone experiences.” Principles that guide a successful undergraduate economics honors program include simplicity, accessibility, skill development, risk minimization, and incentives to combat procrastination. The model program specifies three of the usual six electives and requires a senior thesis that makes an original contribution to economics understanding. It can be started as late as the middle of the junior year, providing accessibility and limiting student risk. A required econometrics course and a policy seminar prepare students to write a thesis. A series of short-term deadlines helps combat procrastination. Although an honors program is not for everyone, its emphasis on quality rather than quantity can add a valuable dimension to most economics degree programs.     

A Realistic International Economics

In this article, the authors describe the structure and assessment of a capstone course in economics. The outcomes are noteworthy for three reasons. First, among cited evidence to date, this is the only undergraduate economics program from a nonselective public university reporting similar achievements in undergraduate research paper publications. Second, the program reports learning outcomes of a relatively new instrument in standardized test (ETS MFT Economics) to measure attainment of proficiencies in economics. Finally, it introduces undergraduate research paper competition outcomes as a measure of student paper quality.     

Undergraduate Coursework in Economics: A Survey Perspective

Survey results from a large sample of economics departments describe offerings for principles courses, coursework requirements for economics majors, and program augmentations such as capstone courses, senior seminars, and honors programs. Findings are reported for all institutions, and institutions are subdivided into six different categories based on public or private control and the highest economics degree offered. The coursework required for the economics major typically consists of ten courses, five in a required core and five electives. The most conspicuous curriculum change over the past 30 years is the rise of econometrics as a required course, now mandatory at about half of major programs. The authors estimate that about 40 percent of students who matriculate as first-year undergraduates take at least one economics course before they leave.     

Writing in the discipline and reproducible methods: A process-oriented approach to teaching empirical undergraduate economics research

The authors of this article describe an empirical research project as a component of an upper-level undergraduate economics writing-in-the-discipline course, thus aiming to reduce the high fixed costs associated with designing an empirical research project assignment and encourage more undergraduate economics research. This project is central to the course structure and has a dual-purpose: to teach students economics writing conventions and reproducible empirical research methods. The authors present a sequenced project design and replication documentation protocol and posit that this promotes student learning and leads to improvements in organization and coherence throughout the entire research and writing process. As an essential element of the course, students learn to do econometrics through effective writing, data management, and empirical analysis.     

Implementing Hansen's Proficiencies

The authors describe the framework their department has adopted to incorporate the attainment of Hansen's (1986) proficiencies into the curriculum. Major changes include the identification of tools students should be able to use to complete specific activities, significant changes in prerequisites for upper-division courses, and the development of a capstone experience designed to bring together the various tools the student has been introduced to as he or she proceeds through the major. They believe that the design characteristics of their capstone experience promote the achievement of Hansen's proficiencies, and the framework described here could be easily adopted by other departments.     

Bootstrapping Student Understanding of What is Going on in Econometrics

Econometrics is an intellectual game played by rules based on the sampling distribution concept. Most students in econometrics classes are uncomfortable because they do not know these rules and so do not understand what is going on in econometrics. This article contains some explanations for this phenomenon and suggestions for how this problem can be addressed. Instructors are encouraged to use explain-how-to-bootstrap exercises to promote student understanding of the rules of the game.     

The Status of Econometrics in the Economics Major: A Survey

In this article, the authors describe the place of econometrics in undergraduate economics curricula in all American colleges and universities that offer economics majors as listed in the U.S. News & World Report “Best Colleges 2010” guide (U.S. News & World Report 2009). Data come from online catalogs, departmental Web sites, and online course syllabi. About one-third of the schools require econometrics of all students majoring in economics, about half require it of none, and a sixth require it of some, but not all, economics majors. Among universities with economics PhD programs and liberal arts colleges, almost all those ranked in the top 10 require it. Below the top 10, there is little correlation between ranking and econometrics requirements. Liberal arts econometrics classes are much more likely to require research projects than their counterparts in universities.     

Modelling Students at Risk

Using a sample of several hundred students we model progression in a first-year econometrics course. Our primary interest is in determining the usefulness of these models in the identification of 'students at risk'. This interest highlights the need to distinguish between students who drop the course and those who complete but who ultimately fail. Such models allow identification and quantification of the factors that are most important in determining student progression and thus make them a potentially useful aid in educational decision making. Our main findings are that Tertiary Entrance Rank (TER), mathematical aptitude, being female and attendance in tutorials are all good predictors of success but amongst these factors only attendance is significant in discriminating between students who fail and those who discontinue. Also, there are differences across degree programs and, in particular, students in Combined Law are very likely to pass but, if they are at risk, they are much more likely to discontinue than to fail.     

Evaluating the flipped classroom: A randomized controlled trial

Despite recent interest in flipped classrooms, rigorous research evaluating their effectiveness is sparse. In this study, the authors implement a randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effect of a flipped classroom technique relative to a traditional lecture in an introductory undergraduate econometrics course. Random assignment enables the analysis to eliminate other potential explanations of performance differences between the flipped and traditional classrooms, while assignment of experimental condition by section and lesson enables improved statistical precision. The authors find that the flipped classroom increases scores on medium-term, high-stakes assessments by 0.16 standard deviation, with similar long-term effects for high-performing students. Estimated impacts are robust to alternative specifications accounting for possible spillover effects arising from the experimental design.     

金融计量经济学:成就和挑战

本文通过对近 2 0年来金融计量经济学主要发展成就的回顾 ,介绍了计量经济学研究的热点领域和有待解决的问题。本文认为 ,ARCH模型以及在此基础上发展起来的其他异方差模型、GMM以及与之相关的参数估计方法的出现以及在金融经济学中成功的运用 ,是金融计量经济学最重要最基本的成就 ;数据及处理方法的独特性使金融计量经济学相对独立于传统计量经济学而发展。     

Doing Economics: Enhancing Skills through a Process-Oriented Senior Research Course

The author describes a senior-level course designed to promote student skills in "acting like economists." Although most departments offer senior-level courses, this one is unique in that it was developed on the basis of learning as opposed to content objectives, assignments are designed to reinforce and further develop research skills through a project of the student's choosing, and it more closely models what it means to "act like an economist" (W. L. Hansen 2006). The author discusses the development of this course and its unique features, the research process followed by students and the outcomes generated, and some of the advantages and disadvantages associated with this form of senior research course.     

SYSTEMATIC INFLUENCES ON TEACHING EVALUATIONS: THE CASE FOR CAUTION*

In this paper, we examine eight years of Quality of Teaching (QOT) responses from an Economics Department in an Australian University. This is done to determine what factors, besides the instructor, have an impact on the raw average student evaluation scores. Most of the previous research on student ratings has been conducted in the US. One significant difference between US and Australian tertiary education is that, on average, the number of foreign undergraduate students in Australia is ten times the number in US institutions. We find that cultural background significantly affects student evaluations. Other factors that have an influence on the average QOT score include: year level; enrolment size; the quantitative nature of the subject; the gender of the student; fee‐paying status by gender; course of study; the differences between the course mark and previous marks; the quality of workbooks; the quality of textbooks; and the QOT score relative to those in other subjects taught at the same time. In addition, average QOT scores for instructors who have taught in a mix of subjects are similar to those based on scores adjusted to account for subject and student characteristics.     

Preparing Graduate Students in Economics for Teaching: Survey Findings and Recommendations

Survey data from PhD-granting economics departments are used to assess the teaching preparation of graduate students in economics. The results show that relatively few departments require graduate student instructors to take a credit course in teaching before teaching their own course or leading a recitation section. Although more graduate student instructors are required to take a noncredit course in teaching before serving as an instructor or recitation leader, the value of such noncredit courses may be limited. The assessment of teaching preparation by department chairs shows mixed responses, with about three-fifths rating it as very good or good and about two-fifths considering it to be only adequate or poor. Recommendations are offered for improving the teaching preparation of graduate student instructors in economics.     

The econometric challenge to system dynamics and vice versa: Some future perspectives

In the last years, there have been some attempts to compare different approaches for dynamic modeling of socioeconomic systems and to suggest guidelines for choosing among them. This paper continues these efforts with special emphasis on system dynamics and econometrics, which are commonly regarded as the roughest competitors in this field of simulation. It will present a detailed catalogue of model features, relevant for an adequate characterization of system dynamics and econometrics, and will stress the importance to notice the interconnections that exist between different features. The paper then gives a systematic survey of the conceivable relations between system dynamics and econometrics, and closes with a short epistemological outlook.     

An Econometrics Laboratory

The authors describe briefly nine experiments designed to illustrate different applied statistical problems or econometric techniques suitable for the first course in econometrics. Additional information and computer programs are available from the authors.     

The practice of econometrics: A feminist critique

This paper defines feminist research methods and econometrics and then constructs a feminist critique of traditional methods of econometrics, notably regression and time series analysis. The role of academe and economics programs in maintaining masculinist econometric practices is also addressed. A list of remedies to be followed includes multimethod and interdisciplinary research, as well as increased reliance on inductive rather than deductive methods.     

Reducing Teacher Moral Hazard in the U.S. Elementary and Secondary Educational System through Merit-pay: An Application of the Principal–Agency Theory

America’s elementary and secondary educational system is faced with an inefficiency stemming from a basic problem associated with unobservability: moral hazard. In this case, the teacher (agent) has an incentive to exert less effort (given cost associated with more work) if the school district (principal) cannot distinguish between low student performance due to a lack of teacher effort and low student performance due low student quality (random variable). This research develops an optimal incentive scheme that guarantees the teacher a fixed payment, plus a variable payment that would be a function of teacher ‘action’ variables thereby reducing moral hazard.

Technometrics: Origins, historical evolution and new directions

This paper analyses the origins and historical evolution of technometrics, a discipline that measures and evaluates technological change with important policy implications. Technometric approaches, initiated in the 1950s, with the pioneering researches carried out by the scholars of The RAND Corporation staff. In the second half of the twentieth century, technometrics becomes a distinct field of investigation, characterised by the coming together of several disciplines, such as econometrics, engineering and applied mathematics, mathematical and multivariate statistics, and so on. This survey presents the main techniques of technometrics, developed over the course of time, showing their potential and methodological difficulties. Some concluding remarks and lessons learned complete the research.     

Creating infographics to enhance student engagement and communication in health economics

In this article, the authors discuss and describe the implementation of and lessons learned from a course project centered on the creation of an infographic in a health economics course and an introduction to health research course. Students were asked to create a simple infographic about a particular topic, after researching and gathering data on that topic. The instructors observed how students synthesized information and data to tell a visual story with their infographic. This article adds to the limited literature regarding infographics in undergraduate instruction. An infographic offers faculty an opportunity to apply active learning strategies to enhance student engagement, retention of information, and communication skills.