Introductory Econometrics - A Modern Approach - ch07.pptVIP

Economics 20 - Prof. Anderson Dummy Variables A dummy variable is a variable that takes on the value 1 or 0 Examples: male (= 1 if are male, 0 otherwise), south (= 1 if in the south, 0 otherwise), etc. Dummy variables are also called binary variables, for obvious reasons A Dummy Independent Variable Consider a simple model with one continuous variable (x) and one dummy (d) y = b0 + d0d + b1x + u This can be interpreted as an intercept shift If d = 0, then y = b0 + b1x + u If d = 1, then y = (b0 + d0) + b1x + u The case of d = 0 is the base group Dummies for Multiple Categories We c