Economic Data Analysis

This concentration prepares students for a career as a quantitative economic analyst in a wide variety of settings. For example, graduates from this concentration have taken jobs as investment analysts for insurance firms, analysts for market research firms, and data analysts for public utilities.

Most students choose electives from within the Economics department (SAS for Economists being a strongly encouraged course). Other commonly selected electives are courses in the Department of Mathematics, and courses from the Department of Quantitative Analysis in COB. Some students choose electives from the Geography department such as an Introduction to Geographical Information Systems.

At the end of this concentration, the student should feel very comfortable stepping into a quantitative position. He or she will have been exposed to various software packages, sources of economic data, and statistical techniques.

Concentration Course Descriptions

Economics 676—Applied Benefit-Cost Analysis
A high-level introduction to the major issues and techniques in evaluation of programs and projects with the tools of applied microeconomics. Topics include measurement of benefits and costs, discounting, project ranking criteria, and uncertainty analysis.
Prerequisite: Economics 651 and 673 or permission of instructor.

Economics 677—Applied Economic Forecasting
This course covers the standard forecasting techniques used by professional economists in business and government. Topics include properties of time-series data, trend-line fitting, ARIMA models, and autoregressions.
Prerequisite: Economics 673 or permission of instructor.

Economics 678—Applied Qualitative and Limited Dependent Variable Models
Many applications in economics have dependent variables that are qualitative or limited in some way. This course introduces the student to binary choice models, multinomial choice models, ordered choice models, count models, censored dependent variable models, and more. Emphasis is on application and interpretation.
Prerequisite: Economics 672 or permission of instructor.

Quantitative Analysis 712—Optimization Models for Managers (2 Credit Hours)
Overview of linear, integer, and nonlinear optimization models in business, focusing on modeling, solution, and interpretation of results. Substantial use of spreadsheet modeling and analysis.

Students must choose one of the following courses to fulfill the requirements of this concentration:

Marketing 712—Marketing Research
Prerequisite: Previous experience in Marketing

Quantitative Analysis 723—Statistical Aspects of Survey Sampling

Quantitative Analysis 731—Principles of Probability

Quantitative Analysis 732—Fundamentals of Statistical Inference

Quantitative Analysis 724—Multivariate Methods

Quantitative Analysis 726—Design of Experiments

Quantitative Analysis 727—Data Mining

 

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