硕士计量1 01 Introduction to Econometrics.pptVIP

4. Confidence intervals A 95% confidence interval for ?Y means an interval that contains the true value of ?Y in 95% of repeated samples. The probability that the true value of ?Y falls within the confidence interval is 0.95. What is random here? the confidence interval the population parameter, ?Y, The interval will differ from one sample to the next; ?Y, is not random, we just don’t know it. Homework Appendix B, B.3, B.10 Appendix C, C.1, C.4 * * * * * * Stopped here on 2/25 * PowerClickAnswer0/AnswerOption2/OptionPoint1/Point/PowerClick Normal Distribution Example The height of the curve at x is determined by the function: x If x is distributed as a normal variable, then it is designated as: x ~ N(?, ?) There are an infinite number of normal curves “Moments” of the population distribution mean = expected value = E(Y) = ?Y = long-run average value of Y over repeated realizations of Y variance = var(Y)=E(Y – ?Y)2 = = measure of the squared spread of the distribution standard deviation = = ?Y Conditional distributions The distribution of Y, given value(s) of some other random variable, X Ex: the distribution of test scores, given that STR 20 Moments of conditional distributions conditional mean = mean of conditional distribution = E(Y|X = x) (important notation) Example: E(Test scores|STR 20), the mean of test scores for districts with small class sizes conditional variance = variance of conditional distribution = var(Y|X = x) The difference in means is the difference between the means of two conditional distributions: ? = E(Test scores|STR 20) – E(Test scores|STR ≥ 20) Other examples of conditional means: Wages of all female workers (Y = wages, X = gender) One-year mortality rate of those given an experimental treatment (Y = live/die; X = treated/not treated) The conditional mean is a new term for the familiar idea of the group average Inference about means, conditional means, and differences in conditional mea